The Zika virus is “scarier” than first thought and its impact on the US could be greater than predicted, public health officials have admitted.<\/p>\n
A wider range of birth defects has been linked to the virus, said Dr Anne Schuchat of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n
And the mosquitoes that carry the virus could travel to more US states than previously thought, she said.<\/p>\n
The current Zika outbreak began almost a year ago in Brazil.<\/p>\n
It has been linked to thousands of birth defects in the Americas.<\/p>\n
“Most of what we’ve learned is not reassuring,” said Dr Schuchat at White House briefing on Monday.<\/p>\n
“Everything we know about this virus seems to be scarier than we initially thought.”<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, US President Obama asked the US Congress for $1.8bn (\u00a31.25bn) in emergency funding to combat the virus.<\/p>\n
In the meantime it has been using money totalling $589m left over from the Ebola virus fund.<\/p>\n
That was a temporary stopgap and inadequate to get the job done, said Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n
The US now needs more money to fight the mosquitoes and to fund better research into vaccines and treatments, he said.<\/p>\n
“When the president asked for $1.9 billion, we needed $1.9 billion.”<\/p>\n
He said there had been recent discoveries about how destructive Zika appeared to be to foetal brains.<\/p>\n
There were also reports of rare neurologic problems in adults, he said.<\/p>\n
The CDC announced that Puerto Rico is to receive $3.9m in emergency Zika funding as the number of cases there doubles every week.<\/p>\n
In February, the first US case of locally transmitted Zika was reported in Dallas, Texas – spread through sexual contact, not a mosquito bite.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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