the president: i just had anopportunity to get a full briefing from secretaryburwell, cdc director frieden, as well as tonyfauci from nih about the zika situation, and i wantto give the american people an update on where we are. as it has been explainedrepeatedly, but i want to reemphasize, zikais not like ebola. this is not a human-to-humantransmission, with the one exception thatwe'll talk about.
it's primarily transmittedthrough mosquitoes, a very particular type of mosquito. but what we do know is thatif you contract zika, even if you don't appear to havesignificant symptoms, it is possible for zika to causesignificant birth defects, including microcephaly,where the skull casing -- the head of the infant issignificantly smaller. we think that there may beother neurological disorders that are caused as aconsequence of zika, and we
don't know all of thepotential effects. we do know thatthey are serious. right now, what we've seenis a little over 500 cases of zika in the continentalunited states, and they all appear to be travel related,not mosquito-transmitted, meaning somebodyfrom the u.s. went down to an area thathas zika, got a bite, came back. we have seen at least 10cases in which a individual
went to one of these areas,got infected, and then sexually transmittedzika to their partner. a more significant,immediate concern is puerto rico, where we know thatthere are over 800 cases that have been diagnosed. however, we suspect thatit could be significantly higher. the reason is, is that formost people, you may not have a lot of symptomswhen you get zika.
if you are not pregnant, orthe partner of somebody who is pregnant or trying to getpregnant, then you may not even know that youend up having zika. and that means thatpeople oftentimes are not affirmatively going to thedoctor and getting tested on these issues. now, here's the good news,is that because of the good work that's been done by thedepartment of health and human services, by the cdc,as well as nih, we have put
forward a plan -- we've gota plan over the next several months to begin developing avaccine and to continually improve ourdiagnostic tests. we're also working with allthe states so that they're properly prepared if westart seeing an outbreak here in the primary unitedstates during the summer when obviously mosquitoesare more active. and what we're also tryingto do is to develop new tools for vector control,meaning how do we kill
mosquitoes and reduce theirpopulations, particularly this kind of mosquito. that's a tricky piece ofbusiness because we've been using a lot of insecticidesfor a long time that have become less andless effective. new strains of mosquitoesbecome resistant to the insecticides that we have. the methods we use aren't aseffective as they used to be. and so we're also investinga lot of time, research,
logistical support to statesand local communities to start improving our abilityto control mosquitoes. puerto rico is more urgent,and some of the territories, but we're also spending timeworking with the states so that they can bebetter prepared. all of this workcosts money. and we have put forward apackage that costs $1.9 billion in emergency fundingin order for us to make sure that we are doing effectivemosquito control, to make
sure that we are developingeffective diagnostic tools and distributing them, makesure that we are developing the vaccines that ultimatelywill prevent some of the tragedies that we'veseen for those who have contracted zika and thenend up having children with significant birth defects. and we didn't just choosethe $1.9 billion from the top of our heads. this was based on publichealth assessments of all
the work thatneeds to be done. and to the extent that wewant to be able to feel safe and secure, and families whoare of childbearing years want to feel as if they canhave confidence that when they travel, when they wantto start a family that this is not an issue -- to theextent that that's something that we think is important,then this is a pretty modest investment for us toget those assurances. unfortunately, what we haveright now is the senate
approving a package thatwould fund a little over half of what'sbeen requested. the house so far hasapproved about a third of the money that's beenrequested -- except that money is taken from the fundthat we're currently using to continue to monitorand fight against ebola. so, effectively, there's nonew money there; all that the house has done is said,you can rob peter to pay paul.
and given that i have, atleast, pretty vivid memories of how concerned people wereabout ebola, the notion that we would stop monitoring aseffectively and dealing with ebola in order to deal withzika doesn't make a lot of sense. and i don't think it willmake a lot of sense to the american people. so here's the upshot. this is somethingthat is solvable.
it is not something that wehave to panic about, but it is something we haveto take seriously. and if we make a modestinvestment on the front end, then this is going to be aproblem that we don't have to deal with onthe back end. every child that hassomething like microcephaly, that may end up costing upto $10 million over the lifetime of that childin terms of that family providing that child thesupport that they need.
that sets aside the painand the sorrow and the challenges that they'regoing to go through. add that up. it doesn't take a lot ofcases for you to get to $1.9 billion. why wouldn't we want tomake that investment now? so my hope was that we wouldhave had a bill that i could sign now, because part ofwhat we're trying to do is to accelerate, get theprocess going for vaccines.
you don't get avaccine overnight. initially, you have to testit to make sure that any potential vaccine is safe. then you have to testto make sure that it's effective. you have to conduct trialswhere you're testing it on a large enough bunch of peoplethat you can make scientific determinations thatit's effective. so we've got to get moving.
and what essentially nihand cdc have been doing is taking pots of money fromother things -- universal flu funds or ebola funds orother funds -- just to get the thing rolling. but we have to reimbursethose pots of money that have already been depletedand we have to be able to sustain the work that'sgoing to need to be done to finish the job. so bottom line is congressneeds to get me a bill.
it needs to get me a billthat has sufficient funds to do the job. they should not be going offon recess before this is done. and certainly this has toget done over the course of the next several weeks inorder for us to be able to provide confidence to theamerican people that we're handling thispiece of business. if i'm a young family rightnow, or somebody who's thinking about starting afamily, this is just a piece
of insurance thati want to purchase. and i think that's truefor most americans. and understand that this isnot something where we can build a wall to prevent --mosquitoes don't go through customs. to the extent that we're nothandling this thing on the front end, we're going tohave bigger problems on the back end. so, for those of you who arelistening, tell your members
of congress, geton the job on this. this is somethingwe can handle. we should have confidence inour ability to take care of it. we've got outstandingscientists and researchers who are in the process ofgetting this done, but they've got to have thesupport from the public in order for us toaccomplish our goal. okay. thank you verymuch, everybody.
0 Response to "warning signs of zika"
Post a Comment