Federal officials said Wednesday they’re raiding $500 million in money aimed at fighting Ebola to use against Zika instead because Congress won’t approve new Zika funding.
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Funding is “urgently needed”, he explained, for a number of priorities including accelerating vaccine research and development, conducting surveillance of mosquitoes, educating healthcare providers, pregnant women and their partners and creating more effective diagnostic tests.
“We should not play with fire here”, Donovan told reporters on a conference call.
President Obama first asked for the emergency funding on Feb 8, and members of Congress have balked at the $1.9 billion request, demanding that the administration tap unused Ebola money.
“If you have traveled to a country with local transmission of Zika you should abstain from unprotected sex”, health department officials said in a news release, highlighting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations. All cases involved travelers who were infected with the Zika virus while overseas and returned to the United States with it, except for a handful of cases involving sexual transmission. Because researchers now believe the virus remains in blood longer than the 10 days previously thought, HHS has arranged for “clean blood” to be sent to the island for the duration of the outbreak, said Mathews Burwell. Most of that money will go to the CDC to help with researching Zika, treating people infected with the virus, and slowing the spread of mosquitoes.
The Zika virus has been linked to microcephaly – a condition in which a developing fetus’ brain fails to fully grow and babies are born with unusually small heads – as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, which causes the body to attack its own nerves.
On the other side of the aisle U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said the White House was making the right move.
In his daily press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said new information concerning the Zika virus shows the threat to Americans is more serious than originally thought.
“These repurposed funds are not enough to support a comprehensive Zika response”, said Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan.
Deputy Secretary of State Heather Higginbottom on Tuesday declared that “an global outbreak of the Zika virus is sustained, severe, and is spreading internationally, and that it is in the national interest to respond to the related public health emergency of worldwide concern”.
The department has already given away many kits already this year, because of the looming threat of the Zika virus.
He said the virus’s link to foetal abnormalities is getting stronger as more cases are followed longitudinally.
The virus has also been detected in Puerto Rico and some sexually transmitted cases have been recorded in the USA, and it could puncture deeper into the mainland in coming months. Donovan said there were “real consequences and risks of waiting”.
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VnExpress, a state media outlet, said the woman is two months pregnant.
