The funds were originally earmarked to fight the Ebola virus, but with Ebola mostly eradicated and Zika spreading quickly throughout North America, government officials have made a decision to use these funds toward fighting the latter tropical virus.
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The funding will be used on several fronts to fight the virus, which is transmitted to people through mosquito bites: to control mosquitoes, for the development of diagnostics and vaccines, tracking and mapping the effects of the infection and other prevention efforts.
About 40 million people travel between the continental USA and Zika-affected countries. When a pregnant woman gets infected, the virus can get into the developing fetus, damaging the brain and causing a condition called microcephaly in which the head is too small. Some preventative measures would have to be delayed, curtailed or stopped if the U.S. Congress does not approve an emergency funding request for more than US$1.8 billion, he added. “We submitted our emergency request to Congress in February, but Congress has yet to act”, Shaun Donovan, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters on a conference call. “We risk the disease getting out of control before Congress acts”.
Donovan said though the administration has signaled that it was open to using a portion of Ebola money for Zika activities, the reallocated funds are not enough to address the response to the significant threat posed by the mosquito-borne disease and its complications.
This includes funding for mosquito control, which is particularly important now that the weather is beginning to warm up.
“If you look to see where Zika is devastating families, mothers and their unborn babies or their newborn babies throughout the Americas, it’s in the areas of extreme poverty”, Hotez told CBS News.
The White House didn’t detail how the $589 million would be spent.
Most of the money – $510 million – would come from funds previously allocated to Ebola, with the remaining $79 million coming from other funds such as the strategic national stockpile, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell said. The virus continues to simmer there, with 12 cases of Ebola now occurring in Liberia and Guinea, officials said. The primary focus is on pregnant women, but also on individuals infected with Zika who aren’t pregnant, but can spread the virus just by being bitten by a mosquito. A Washington Post article titled, “As Mosquito Season Arrives, is the U.S. Ready for Zika?” said more targeted spraying around homes is a better defense against these mosquitoes. Funding from Congress is urgently needed.
The CDC said the two cases showed that Vietnam might have indigenous Zika virus and it raised the travel warning level to “alert” along with 46 of the 61 regions reported to have the Zika virus. Mosquitos that can carry Zika have not been found in MS for the past few decades, but the MSDH is now watching mosquito populations in the state. “We can not wait for the fall”.
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“We’re putting ourselves at risk by taking the Ebola funding”, said Sen. “We have two global public health crises, Ebola and Zika, and we can’t set one aside to deal with the other”.
