Federal health officials say the Zika virus is a much bigger problem than they first imagined, and put out an urgent call on Monday for Congress to approve nearly $2 billion in new spending to fight it.
“We are quite concerned about Puerto Rico, where the virus is spreading throughout the island” and where hundreds of thousands of cases could emerge, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the White House.
“Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought,” Schuchat added. Although researches now believe 30 U.S. states are at risk — double than previously believed — she said they do not expect a major outbreak of the tropical diseases on the continental U.S.
Both Schuchat and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said the outbreak is now thought to be a bigger risk to women and newborn children. The mosquito-borne virus has been linked to microcephaly in newborns.
But Fauci said it needs the money from Congress to keep up the NIH’s effort to fight the outbreak.
“We don’t have what we need,” Fauci said at the White House. “When the president asked for $1.8 billion, we needed $1.8 billion,” he said about President Obama’s emergency funding request.
NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week transferred money earmarked for studying and combating Ebola to take on Zika when Congress refused to comply with Obama’s request.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he hopes the update provided by Fauci and Schuchat will “serve as motivation to Congress” to approve Obama’s Zika funding request. House appropriators last week indicated they were aware of the funding need.
“It is clear that Zika poses a real threat to public health, and the United States must respond quickly to address the current situation and be prepared for the potential spread of this disease within our borders,” the House Appropriations Committee stated last week.
“That is why more than a month ago we called on the administration to use existing funding and legal authorities to provide the most immediate and effective response to the Zika outbreak. We are pleased to hear today that federal agencies are heeding our call,” the statement continued.
“As we move forward, the Appropriations Committee will continue to monitor the changing needs resulting from this unpredictable crisis to assure the resources necessary for the response are available,” the statement concluded.
The CDC and NIH recently hosted a summit with state health officials to help them combat Zika and has distributed to Puerto Rico kits aimed at pregnant women. Furthermore, health officials and the State Department recommend that pregnant women “defer” travel to hot spots until after they give birth.
This story was corrected to include Schuchat’s correct quote about Zika in the third paragraph.
