Government scientists say they’ve cloned an epidemic strain of Zika they hope will aid them in developing a vaccine to stop the deadly virus that causes babies to be born with brain damage.

The cloned virus replicated successfully in multiple cell lines, including placental and brain cells -- tissue particularly vulnerable to damage from Zika. The clone will be used for the development of an effective vaccine, the National Institutes of Health researchers say.

"Our goal is to create long-term immunity after one short immunization," says Dr. Alexander Pletnev of the NIH’s Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md.

The goal of Pletnev's group is to create a live, attenuated vaccine similar to the ones used in humans against other harmful viruses like polio, yellow fever, and Japanese encephalitis. This type of virus uses live pathogens to spark the body’s immune response.

Following up on their lab studies, the team recently began mouse studies of the cloned virus, known as ZIKV. Other researchers are also welcome to use the to clone to investigate and ultimately stop the harm caused by Zika, he says of the work, which is published in mBio.

Zika first identified nearly 70 years ago in Uganda, but for decades it circulated only in a small geographic area in equatorial Africa and Asia, and mostly among primates.

The current epidemic began early last year in Brazil and since then has spread throughout South and Central America and in February of this year, the World Health Organization declared the pandemic a public health emergency.

Most recently, Zika has spread to the U.S., with the first pockets of locally transmitted disease reported in the Miami area of Florida. (The virus can also be transmitted through sex.)

The virus is considered highly dangerous because it causes babies to be born with severe birth defects, and also is linked to neurological disorders in adults as well.

Zika belongs to the Flavivirus group, which includes West Nile, dengue and yellow fever. Pletnev’s team has worked extensively with this virus group. They produced a vaccine for West Nile virus, currently in clinical trials, and have worked on developing vaccines against St. Louis and Japanese encephalitis.