NEWBURGH – The growing concern over the domestic impact of the Zika virus has prompted elected officials and local stakeholders to urge Congress to appropriate additional funding to combat the mosquito borne disease.
Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY18), along with local health officials, announced on Thursday their support for President Obama’s push for Congress to allocate $1.9 billion for research and development of a vaccine.
The current proposal would allocate the funding as follows: $246 million to Medicaid and Medicare services to expand healthcare coverage for pregnant women and children suffering from Microcephaly or other birth defects resulting from the virus; $277 million for National Institutes of Health to conduct research and development of Zika vaccinations; $188 million to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency for vaccination, as well as other preventative measure studies; and $376 million to state and foreign operations in an effort to combat domestic infection. The rest of the total would be allocated to the CDC for mosquito control programs: the primary means of communication for the virus. However, infected humans may also spread the disease to non-infected mosquitoes, which may then infect humans afterward. Human sexual contact with an infected person will spread the disease as well.
Recent statistics show that 2,517 confirmed Zika infections have been reported in the continental U.S., 11,528 confirmed infections in Puerto Rico (25 percent of their tested population), 701 confirmed cases in New York State, seven of them within Orange County.
Orange County Health Commissioner Dr. Eli Avila said the disease poses the most danger for newborns.
“The most common one that you hear is the Microcephaly, with a small brain, that may not be compatible with life, so death is a certainty in those cases. You have blindness that’s been reported,” said Avila. “The New England Journal of Medicine has had recent articles on this. Deafness has been recorded, with a whole bevy of other issues, and now we are finding there’s a predilection for certain stem cells in the brain which affect memory and maybe have an effect on depression and Alzheimer’s. This is not just affecting the unborn; this is affecting you and me, all adults,” he said.
There have not yet been any confirmed insect carriers of the virus in New York, but Maloney said that doesn’t mean action shouldn’t be taken, or funds appropriated, as this is a national health concern.
“Zika is a more manageable threat if we do the research we need to do immediately because of the possibility of developing real vaccines, which can effectively prevent the spread of this, before we have the widespread public health effects that we are facing,” said Maloney. Congress will be convening again on September 6 at which time Maloney, with the support of Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D, NY17) and other co-sponsors, will be submitting legislation for the funding of $1.9 billion towards combating the Zika virus.
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