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 At a White House briefing, they stepped up pressure on the
Republican-led Congress to pass approximately $1.9 billion in
emergency funding for Zika preparedness that the Obama
administration requested in February.
"Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier
than we initially thought," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, a deputy
director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"And so while we absolutely hope we don't see widespread local
transmission in the continental U.S., we need the states to be ready
for that," Schuchat added.
Zika, linked to numerous cases of the birth defect micocephaly in
Brazil, is spreading rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The White House said last week in the absence of the emergency funds
it will redirect $589 million, mostly from money already provided by
Congress to tackle the Ebola virus, to prepare for Zika before it
begins to emerge in the continental United States as the weather
warms.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said if Congress does not provide
emergency Zika funding, U.S. officials likely would be forced to
redirect money currently dedicated for research into malaria,
tuberculosis and a universal flu vaccine.
"I don't have what I need right now," Fauci said.
Hopefully the funding crimp will never reach a point where the
stopgap money runs out, but if it does, he said, "we'll have to
start raiding other accounts, and very important research in other
diseases is going to suffer, and suffer badly."
Schuchat said Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species that primarily
transmits the virus, is present in about 30 states, rather than 12
as previously thought. In the U.S. territory Puerto Rico, there may
be hundreds of thousands of Zika infections and perhaps hundreds of
affected babies, she added.
Fauci said it appears the first Zika vaccine candidate is on target
to enter initial clinical trials in September.
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Schuchat declined to forecast the number of Zika infections that
could occur in the United States. While she said she did not expect
large outbreaks in the continental United States, "we can't assume
we're not going to have a big problem."
Schuchat said Zika is likely to be a problem during much of a
pregnancy, not just not just during the first trimester as
previously believed.
As Brazil prepares to host the Olympic games in August, the CDC has
recommended that pregnant women avoid traveling to the country.
"We also want people to know that travel to the area may lead to
'silent' infections or infections with symptoms, and that following
infections, it's very important to take precautions during sex not
to spread the virus," Schuchat said.
The World Health Organization has said there is a strong scientific
consensus that Zika can cause microcephaly, a condition in which
babies are born with small heads that can result in developmental
problems, as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological
disorder that can result in paralysis, though proof may take months
or years.
Brazil said last week it has confirmed more than 1,046 cases of
microcephaly, and considers most to be related to Zika infections in
the mothers.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Jeff Mason and Clarece Polk; Editing
by Will Dunham)
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