House Republicans have proposed spending $622 million to battle the Zika Virus.
Advertisement
Two species of mosquito can carry the Zika virus: the Asian tiger and the yellow fever.
The bill is financed by cuts to unspent funding passed in 2014 to battle Ebola, as well as leftover funding at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Senate is slated to vote Tuesday on three competing plans to battle the virus, with a bipartisan plan that cuts Obama’s $1.9 billion request to $1.1 billion having the greatest chance to advance.
For the general population who get infected with Zika, most will develop mild symptoms and they generally only last about a week. Zika, transmitted by both mosquitoes and sexual contact, has been found active in almost 40 countries in the Americas.
The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, without additional emergency funding from Congress, it may have to stop or delay measures to prevent the Zika virus.
With spring weather and mosquito season coming soon, the Mecklenburg County Health Department is trying to get the word out to people about how they can help reduce the number of mosquitoes in the area and protect themselves from the Zika virus.
“Zika’s shadow is spreading too quickly in Florida, which has one quarter of all the Zika cases in the United States”, Buchanan said.
Across the USA, 503 travel-associated cases have been reported. He said in a news release the website will include information on Zika cases as they appear and on mosquitoes that are potential virus carriers in the state. The proposal is fully paid for by using funds from the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund – resources made available for just this type of scenario.
Advertisement
According to the health economist Donald Shepherd, Zika is similar to the mosquito-borne dengue outbreak, which cost the global economy $8.9bn. This allocation is on top of the $60 million redirected Zika funding, which will be used for supporting lab capacity, improving surveillance, boosting mosquito control, promoting blood supply safety and contributing data to a pregnancy registry. “Congress must know these funds will be spent efficiently and effectively to battle this disease”. At an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) colloquium on Zika in Washington D.C. over the weekend, doctors complained of long test result waits to tell pregnant patients – ones who face agonizing decisions about continuing a risky pregnancy – whether they had the virus.
