The Obama administration announced on Wednesday it will use $510 million penciled in to fight Ebola to combat Zika instead and rely on $89 million in other unspent funds.
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“These efforts can’t be stopped or shortchanged”, said Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Additionally, she said, there have been 672 confirmed cases in the United States and its territories, including 64 cases in pregnant women.
Zika has been seen in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands for years, but has recently been reported in approximately 30 countries, mostly in the Caribbean, Central, and South America.
So far in 2016 the mosquito-borne Zika virus has affected eight people across the commonwealth.
Researchers believe there may be a link between Zika and Microcephaly which is a debilitating neurological birth defect in which a baby’s head is too small as well as other serious complications.
Burwell and Donovan reiterated that the administration’s earlier request for supplemental funding from Congress remains in place.
Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Congress wouldn’t budge on approving the emergency funding request. Absent supplemental funding, we will need to delay contracting with manufacturers for the development of faster and more accurate diagnostic tests, which are needed to ensure that those who think they have been exposed to Zika can get tested.
“We should not play with fire here”, Donovan told reporters on a conference call.
To brace against the spread of the Zika virus, the Grayson County Health Department has purchased mosquito traps to capture the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the carrier for the virus. Most of these infections were acquired while traveling outside the country.
“The CDC is preparing for cases in the United States but doesn’t expect the magnitude of what it is in Brazil”, said Rochelson, founder of the Zika Exposure and Pregnancy Program, at Northwell.
Obama administration officials said on Wednesday that they were allocating $589 million toward resources to stop the spread of the Zika virus, NPR reported. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.) told reporters last month that the government had “plenty of money” available to fight Zika.
“I’m taking money from other areas that we fund in order to fund the very important Zika research, particularly the Zika vaccine research”. So the USA funds designated for Ebola were meant to help those countries improve their struggling public health systems to prevent something like this from happening again. We face two real global health challenges, Ebola and Zika.
But that alone is “insufficient” to fully combat Zika, Earnest said, noting that it is a “temporary fix” until Congress acts on the looming health crisis.
“House Republicans have stated all along that we ought to save taxpayer dollars by using unspent Ebola money for Zika efforts”, Strong said in an email.
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We find ourselves in a rare moment where we have advance warning on a disease, and the likely birth defects that are associated with it, will be arriving in the U.S. Governors, state and local leaders are already working with us to get ahead of this threat.
