The chief of the Centers for Disease Control said Thursday the U.S. needs new funding to “provide the protection that Americans deserve” against the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne virus that’s been linked to serious birth defects in Latin America and has infected hundreds in Puerto Rico.
Speaking one day before a major Zika summit in Atlanta, Dr. Tom Frieden doubled down on the administration’s plea to Congress for emergency funding to fight the virus at home and abroad.
President Obama is locked in a stalemate with congressional Republicans over his $1.9 billion request, with GOP leaders saying the administration should spend leftover Ebola funds before it asks for new money.
Dr. Frieden and other cabinet officials have said they do not want to short-change efforts to fully stamp out Ebola, a virus that killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa from December 2013 to late 2015.
“I think it would be dangerous to let down our guard and take funds away from one activity that is protecting Americans and stopping disease there, so it doesn’t come here, to fight the latest threat,” Dr. Frieden said on National Public Radio’s “Here and Now.”
Neither side of the funding standoff appears ready to budge, so Dr. Frieden said the CDC is looking for funding anywhere it can find some, including the private sector.
“The bottom line here is that we need resources to provide the protection that Americans deserve,” he said.
Though Zika isn’t transmitting locally in the continental U.S., the CDC has recorded 312 travel-related cases in the 50 states and D.C., including 27 cases in pregnant women.
U.S. territories have reported 349 cases of locally acquired infection, mostly in Puerto Rico, but the mainland could see local transmission once temperatures rise in the summer.
In fact, Zika-carrying mosquitoes inhabit a greater portion of the U.S. than previously thought, according to maps posted by the CDC on Wednesday.
The virus’ primary vector, the Aedes aegypti, has been found as far north as San Francisco, Kansas City, Missouri, Cincinnati and New York City.
Previous maps suggested the mosquito was mainly clustered in the South.
Another carrier, the Aedes albopictus, has an even larger footprint in the U.S., stretching into southern Minnesota and New England, though it is less likely to spread Zika and related viruses than the Aedes aegypti.
The CDC said its updated maps do not indicate the prevalence of the mosquitoes or likelihood of infection in any given area.
Zika is a little-known virus that festered for decades in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region before globe-hopping to Latin America, where it has spread to more than 20 countries.
Its rapid transmission has been tied to a sharp uptick in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads, or microcephaly, and Guillian-Barre syndrome, which can lead to paralysis.
Federal, state and local officials will gather at CDC headquarters on Friday to discuss the latest scientific data on Zika and coordinate an effective response to the threat.
The Aedes aegypti tends to live inside homes, so the ability to spray for them is limited.
Puerto Ricans told CDC focus groups that they would allow officials to spray EPA-approved insecticides in their homes, Dr. Frieden said, even if there is a widespread belief that pregnant women would resist the intrusion.
“We found just the opposite. That women would welcome it,” he told NPR. “They are extremely concerned about the risk of Zika, they understand that it may be a devastating problem.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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