Obama asking Congress for emergency funding to combat Zika

Most people who catch it experience mild or no symptoms. The virus is suspected to be linked with occurrences of microcephaly in new born babies, but no link has been proven yet.

Only a few labs can do the more complex things needed to tell is someone is or has been infected with Zika, and not having these tests slows down efforts to understand the spread of the virus and to try and determine whether it is indeed causing birth defects and a serious neurological condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome. “There appears to be some significant risk for pregnant women or women who are thinking about getting pregnant”, he said. The White House has been insistent that the administration is responding aggressively to the virus, which has not yet been transmitted via mosquito in the U.S. The virus has already been transmitted on U.S. soil via sexual contact.

Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health and the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat were due to talk to reporters at the White House about the request later on Monday. “Congress will review this new request and the president’s budget request”.

The Pan American Health Organization reports 26 countries and territories in the Americas with local Zika transmission.

U.S. President Obama is asking Congress to provide $1.8 billion in emergency funding to fight the Zika virus, the mosquito-borne illness that could be causing the proliferation of a rare birth defect in some Latin American countries, Time reports.

Most of the money would be allocated to the Department of Health and Human Services to improve laboratory capacity, launch educational programs and establish rapid response teams. The White House said it would ask for $250 million for Puerto Rico, the financially struggling US territory. The island is in the midst of a fiscal crisis.

There have been 50 confirmed cases of Zika in the United States among people who had traveled to affected areas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.

“And so we are going to be putting up a legislative proposal to Congress to resource both the research on vaccines and diagnostics but also helping in terms of public health systems”.