Yahoo – AFP,
Andrew Beatty
Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Monday asked for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funds to tackle the fast-spreading Zika virus in the United States and beyond.
Health
Ministry employees fumigate against the Aedes aegypti mosquito in
Guatemala
City on February 5, 2016 (AFP Photo/Johan Ordonez)
|
Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Monday asked for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funds to tackle the fast-spreading Zika virus in the United States and beyond.
The mosquito-borne
illness has surged through Latin America, prompting fears that clement spring
weather could bring a spate of cases north of the Rio Grande.
The White
House said fresh cash is needed to fund mosquito control programs, vaccine
research and other "essential strategies" to combat the virus and
help "ongoing preparedness efforts."
Zika is not
deadly but in Latin America has been linked to a rapid rise in the number of
children born with microcephaly -- abnormally small heads and brains.
There is
currently no cure or vaccine for the virus which, in most people, causes mild
symptoms.
While Obama
called for more funds, he also urged calm.
"The
good news is this is not like Ebola, people don't die of Zika -- a lot of
people get it and don't even know that they have it," he told television
channel CBS.
"There
appears to be some significant risk for pregnant women or women who are
thinking about getting pregnant."
"We
don't know exactly what the relations there are but there is enough correlation
that we have to take this very seriously."
The World
Health Organization has declared a global medical emergency to combat Zika and
individual countries and regions are beginning to mobilize.
The head of
the US National Institutes of Health, Anthony Fauci, said the prospects for a
vaccine are good and phase one trials could begin "sometime in the
summer."
"(We
are) unlikely to have a vaccine that's widely available for a few years but we
certainly can get the initial steps."
In the
interim, some countries have taken the extraordinary step of urging women to
delay having children.
In Europe,
a medicines watchdog has set up a task team to help develop drugs and vaccines.
According
to the Pan-American Health Organization, 26 countries have confirmed cases,
spanning 7,000 kilometers (4,400 miles) from Mexico to Paraguay.
The hardest
hit country is Brazil, which hosts the Summer Olympics starting in August.
Aedes
Aegypti mosquito larvae are photographed at a laboratory of the Ministry of
Health of El Salvador in San Salvador, February 7, 2016 (AFP Photo/Marvin
Recinos)
|
Fear of
catching the virus has become a national obsession, dabbing this year's
carnival extravaganza with a large dollop of Mosquito repellent.
Firms
report sales of spray have increased 800 percent from December 2015-January
2016.
Pharmacies
report they are starting to sell out of some repellents.
In
Colombia, more than 22,600 cases of the Zika virus have been confirmed.
There, the
virus has been linked to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disease that
can cause paralysis in humans.
Spring
forward
The US
Centers for Disease Control has so far found 50 confirmed cases of Zika among
travelers returning to the United States.
In at least
one instance, in Dallas, the disease may have been transmitted sexually.
But the
Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries the virus is endemic across the southern
and eastern United States.
"As
spring and summer approach, bringing with them larger and more active mosquito
populations, we must be fully prepared to mitigate and quickly address local
transmission within the continental US, particularly in the southern United
States," the White House said.
Puerto Rico
and other US territories in warmer areas are especially vulnerable.
Obama's
funding proposal includes $250 million in aid for the cash-strapped island.
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