The World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) Zika response programme is only 13 per cent funded, “severely” compromising efforts to combat the virus that is increasingly becoming a global threat, the UN agency said on Monday (May 30).

But the significant funding gaps in the US$17.7 million plan are not having a major impact on Brazil’s efforts to keep the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro safe, WHO spokesman Nyka Alexander told AFP.

The UN agency last week rejected a call from 150 international doctors to change the timing or location of the Rio Games, with Brazil the country hardest hit by the Zika outbreak.