WASHINGTON — Two senior Obama administration officials said Monday that the government did not have enough money to effectively combat and treat the Zika virus, which they called a more profound threat to the United States than experts once believed.
WASHINGTON — Two senior Obama administration officials said Monday that the government did not have enough money to effectively combat and treat the Zika virus, which they called a more profound threat to the United States than experts once believed.
The mosquito-borne virus has been spreading widely in the Americas since late last year and has begun to touch the United States through travelers returning from affected areas. As public health officials discover alarming new aspects of the virus, they are intensifying pressure on Congress to provide more resources.
“I don’t have what I need right now” to address the virus, Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters Monday at the White House. “If we don’t get the money that the president has asked for, we’re not going to be able to take it to the point where we’ve actually accomplished what we need to do.”
President Barack Obama in February requested an emergency appropriation of $1.8 billion to deal with Zika, but the Republican-led Congress said the administration should first use money set aside to combat Ebola. After arguing for months that was not possible, officials said last week that they would use $510 million of that money, plus $79 million from other accounts.
But Fauci and Dr. Anne Schuchat, the deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, argued on Monday that such a stopgap measure was not enough. If Congress does not provide the needed funds, Fauci said, public health authorities will probably have to divert money from malaria and tuberculosis prevention programs, as well as from flu vaccine programs.
The mosquito that carries the Zika virus is present in 30 states, more than twice what officials originally thought, Schuchat said, though no locally acquired cases have been reported yet. That indicates that mosquitoes in the states do not yet have the virus. But in Puerto Rico, nearly every confirmed case has been contracted locally, meaning the virus is present in mosquitoes there and transmitting rapidly.
The virus, which has been linked to birth defects and brain damage in infants born to infected mothers, and to paralysis in some instances in adults, is dangerous not only during the first trimester of a pregnancy, but potentially throughout, Schuchat added. And, though symptoms in most cases are mild, Fauci said scientists were learning troubling new information about possible neurological effects.
“While we absolutely hope we don’t see widespread local transmission in the continental U.S.,” Schuchat said, “we need the states to be ready for that.”
As of last week, there were 700 cases of Zika disease in the United States, including its territories — about half of them in Puerto Rico, according to the CDC. Pregnant women made up 69 of the cases.
U.S. officials believe that Puerto Rico could eventually have hundreds of thousands of cases, Schuchat said, affecting perhaps hundreds of babies. The administration is working on mosquito control efforts and “Zika prevention kits” for pregnant women.
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