The Zika virus has reached the U.S. Here’s what we can do to stop the spread.
The Senate just passed a bipartisan funding bill to fight Zika, a critical first step to protect public health and ultimately save lives.
But the House passed a bill that was wholly inadequate to deal with the crisis at hand. It’s time for the House to step up and pass the Senate’s bipartisan bill — and there’s no time to waste.
The virus, linked to devastating birth defects, has wreaked havoc across South and Central America. Now it’s on American soil — and it will reach the continental U.S. by June or July. More than 1,200 Americans are known to have the disease, including more than 100 pregnant women. And that number is expected to rise dramatically this summer as temperatures climb and mosquitoes carrying the disease spread northward.
Hillary Clinton has been concerned about Zika since the threat first emerged in the U.S. late last year. She has continually called on Congress to grant President Obama’s request for emergency funding to diagnose and treat the disease. And in April, she sent my colleague Amanda Renteria, one of her senior political advisors, and me on a fact-finding mission to Puerto Rico, where the Centers for Disease Control estimate 1 in 4 people — hundred of thousands of Americans — could get Zika by the end of the year.
We spent two days meeting with government officials and health experts, visiting affected neighborhoods, and observing Zika-education efforts at local clinics. And what we learned on the ground made it incredibly clear that emergency funds are needed to stop this looming health crisis.
Zika has only been in Puerto Rico since December, but the island is no stranger to mosquito-borne illnesses: The same mosquitoes carrying Zika transported the dengue virus and chikungunya in recent years. And mosquito control is an ongoing challenge: They breed in piles of old tires — found all over the island — and in septic tanks, flower pots, and anywhere standing water collects.
Many homes in Puerto Rico aren’t air conditioned and lack screens, so residents are exposed to bug bites constantly. In fact, some locals told us they’re so accustomed to mosquito diseases that they don’t take them seriously. That makes it harder to convince people to take the right precautions — especially against a virus like Zika, which in many cases has no symptoms.
Local experts took us on a tour of areas heavily affected by Zika, including the Martín Peña Canal, a waterway that runs through the heart of the city. Heavy rains the night before had flooded the canal and surrounding neighborhoods by the time we arrived, and residents we met were standing on the streets outside their flooded homes.
There were children playing on the banks of the flooded canal, exactly where they could get mosquito-borne illnesses. In areas like Martín Peña Canal, most families can’t afford the most effective mosquito repellent.
Across the island, crews are working to get rid of tire piles and other stagnant water pools where mosquitoes breed. But according to Dr. Johnny Rullán, a former Puerto Rico secretary of health, current efforts to reduce Zika — with the limited resources available — won’t be nearly enough to mitigate the spread.
In addition to controlling mosquitoes, public health officials are doing everything they can to educate and track the health of pregnant women. Moms-to-be who have contracted Zika will begin giving birth this fall, and experts warn that their babies are at a higher risk of being born with microcephaly, a severe birth defect that can lead to developmental delays and long-term medical needs.
We visited one of the island’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) clinics, which serve more than 90 percent of pregnant women in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Health Department has educated thousands of women at these clinics about how to protect themselves from Zika, and they are distributing toolkits with mosquito nets, repellent, and condoms. The clinic we visited even had a video playing on loop about how to protect against the virus.
But most pregnant women in Puerto Rico still don’t know what they should be doing to keep themselves — and their babies — safe. For example, we saw lots of pregnant women in tank tops and sundresses, leaving their skin exposed to mosquitoes. We learned that only one-third of pregnant women on the island have been tested for the virus, something that should be standard practice. And health officials we spoke with made it clear that they do not have the resources for a major public awareness campaign.
Our visit to Puerto Rico underscored the urgent threat Zika poses — and the need for emergency funding to address it. In addition to public education and mosquito abatement, we have to develop a rapid diagnostic test so that people will know they have the virus before they spread it to others. And we need to develop a vaccine and a treatment.
None of this will be possible without the right resources. We’ve known about the impending Zika outbreak for months, and yet Congress has failed to take action. It’s time for our lawmakers to step up and fight this disease. The health of American families depends on it.
Originally published at www.hillaryclinton.com.
