The continental United States has yet to see cases of transmission of the virus, which is carried by a mosquito.
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All 46 Senate Democrats sent a letter to the White House last week calling for an “urgent and aggressive response” to the Zika virus.
Most of the money would be spent in the United States on testing, surveillance and response in affected areas, and on research into a vaccine, with some funds also going to support countries already grappling with the virus, the White House said. “There appears to be some significant risk for pregnant women or women who are thinking about getting pregnant”, he said.
The virus is most feared due its links to microcephaly – a condition where babies are born with brain damage and undeveloped heads. While the president said that the White House was addressing the Zika virus earnestly, Obama repeatedly emphasized that he thought Americans should not be overly alarmed.
So far, the only recent case that has been transmitted within the U.S.is believed to have occurred in Texas through sex. “Congress will review this new request and the president’s budget request”.
U.S. President Obama is asking Congress to provide $1.8 billion in emergency funding to fight the Zika virus, the mosquito-borne illness that could be causing the proliferation of a rare birth defect in some Latin American countries, Time reports.
“There is much we do not yet know about Zika and its relationship to the poor health outcomes that are being reported in Zika-affected areas”, a White House Fact Sheet reads.
About $250 million will be directed toward Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program for a year, as its own Medicaid program is capped amid a financial crisis and the island is experiencing ongoing active Zika transmissions. “And so we are going to be putting up a legislative proposal to Congress to resource both the research on vaccines and diagnostics but also helping in terms of public health systems”.
The remainder, about $335 million would go to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
At least 50 cases of Zika infections have been confirmed in US travelers from December through Friday.
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Zika usually is transmitted through bites from infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are common in Florida, along the Gulf Coast and states that border Mexico.
