The White House announced Monday that it is requesting $1.8 billion in emergency funding to respond to and combat the Zika virus, which is currently spreading in more than two dozen countries and territories throughout the Western Hemisphere.
“There shouldn’t be a panic on this,” President Barak Obama said in an interview aired Monday on CBS This Morning. “The good news is, this is not like Ebola,” he said. “People don’t die of Zika.” But, he went on to mention the troubling link with Zika infections and birth defects in some babies, namely microcephaly, a condition of shrunken heads and skulls. “There’s enough correlation that we have to take this very seriously,” he said of the risk for pregnant women and women planning to become pregnant.
In its Monday announcement, the White House explained that the requested funds, if approved by Congress, will “accelerate our ability to prevent, detect and respond to the Zika virus and bolster our ability to reduce the potential for future infectious disease outbreaks.”
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