San Salvador, January 22 (RHC-teleSUR) -- Health officials in El Salvador have advised women to delay pregnancy until 2018 amid fears that the spreading Zika virus causes birth defects in newborns.

The mosquito-borne virus is suspected to cause a rare brain defect in babies, known as microcephaly, which causes abnormally small heads, leading to severe developmental issues, brain damage and sometimes death.

Speaking Thursday, El Salvador’s vice minister for public health, Eduardo Espinoza, warned women from the Central American country to avoid having babies for the next two years to avoid passing on potential negative effects of the Zika virus.

The government decided to make the announcement after 5,397 cases of the Zika virus were detected in El Salvador in 2015 and the first few days of this year, according to Espinoza.

While last week the U.S. Centers for Disease Control gave a Level 2 Alert, warning pregnant women to avoid travel to 14 countries and territories in the Caribbean and Latin America due to the spread of virus.

In Colombia, which has the second-highest Zika infection rate after Brazil, the government warned women from getting pregnant, but only for six to eight months.

The fever as of yet has no cure and is contracted through the Aedes aegypti mosquito which is also known to carry the Dengue, yellow fever and Chikungunya viruses.