“This administration is committed to meeting the Zika outbreak in Puerto Rico with the necessary urgency”, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in a statement.
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The public health emergency declaration will allow Puerto Rico to apply for federal funding and hire workers to combat the virus, as well as for outreach and education efforts. Burwell traveled to the US territory in late April to evaluate its response to the outbreak. “Even if they do not feel sick, travelers returning to the United States from Cayman Islands should take steps to prevent mosquito bites for three weeks so that they do not spread Zika to uninfected mosquitoes”.
The actual number of people infected with Zika in Puerto Rico is likely higher, officials said Friday, because most people with a Zika infection have no symptoms and might not seek testing.
The United States reported its first locally transmitted Zika virus in Florida in July.
Pregnant women are particularly urged to protect themselves against Zika because it raises the risk of birth defects including microcephaly, in which infants are born with small heads and malformed brains.
Puerto Rico reported the first microcephaly case acquired on US soil in May, involving a dead fetus that a woman turned over to health authorities. More than 1,900 of those cases were in the last week alone.
Two people have died from complications of the virus and 90 were hospitalized, according to Puerto Rico’s department of health.
Garcia recently authorized the use of Bti, an organic larvicide, to fight the spread of Zika after rejecting aerial spraying with the insecticide naled as proposed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The US surgeon general said this week he expected 25 percent of the territory’s population to be infected with Zika by the end of 2016.
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Zika is primarily spread by mosquitoes, but can also be transmitted by sexual contact.
