More money is needed for rapid tests and education for women about the looming Zika virus threat, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said Friday.
Clinton recently sent two staff members to Puerto Rico to learn more about the virus that has infected more than 600 people there. Clinton also pushed a petition to convince Congress to approve nearly $2 billion in funding to fight the virus.
“One thing was clear from their discussions with local health and government officials, visits to impacted neighborhoods and observations at women’s health clinics: We need more resources to stop the spread of this disease,” Clinton wrote on the website Quora.
Her call for more funding comes on the same day Congress leaves Washington for a week-long recess without adopting President Obama’s $1.9 billion funding request for Zika.
“Congress should immediately provide emergency funding for Zika testing and treatment, mosquito control, family planning and to support maternal and infant health,” she wrote.
The funding would go toward states to help fight the virus and develop a vaccine and new diagnostic tests.
Meanwhile, on Friday the Food and Drug Administration approved emergency use of a new Zika diagnostic test.
The virus causes a mild illness and rash, but only one in five people who are infected get those symptoms. Health officials are more worried about a confirmed link to the birth defect microcephaly.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a Puerto Rican man died due to complications from the Zika virus, the first death in the U.S. territory.
The CDC is worried that the virus could spread further into the continental U.S. when mosquito season rolls around. More than 400 Zika cases have been confirmed in the U.S., but almost all stem from people who got the virus in another country or territory.
