This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

AAFP, ACP, ACOG, AAP, CDC director call on Congress to approve Zika funding

Joining a growing call from medical organizations for Congress to quickly approve emergency funding for prevention and treatment of the Zika virus, CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, on Thursday urged lawmakers to overcome their disagreements and act while there is still time to adequately respond.

Addressing the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., just days before Memorial Day weekend — or, as Frieden called it, “the opening of mosquito bite season” — the CDC director warned that the center’s ability to properly address the spread of Zika virus would be seriously hampered without the necessary emergency funding. Calling the discovery and spread of the mosquito-borne virus, which has been confirmed to cause microcephaly, “unprecedented and tragic,” Frieden added, “the window of opportunity [to address its spread] is rapidly closing.”

“Congress did the right thing with Ebola, and I hope in the end they will do the right thing with Zika, and they’ll do that without making us stop a battle in one part of the world to fight a battle in another part of the world,” Frieden said. “You don’t stop fighting terrorism in the Middle East to fight terrorism in Africa.”

Tom Frieden, MD, MPH

The Senate this month voted 68-29 to approve $1.1 billion in emergency funding for Zika response, short of President Barack Obama’s $1.9 billion request, but nearly double the $622.1 million package approved by the House of Representatives in a 241-184 vote. In addition, the House bill would use resources allocated for the Ebola response.

Since then, lawmakers in both chambers have been unable to come to an agreement over reconciling the two bills. Congress is scheduled to adjourn at the end of the week, and will not return until June 6. According to Frieden, approving the Zika funding through a regular spending bill would take months.

Faced with the prospect of waiting months for the response funding, Frieden said the CDC has had to reallocate funds from other projects.

“One of the things that we had to do, because we would be at least 3 months for a supplemental (funding measure), was to borrow money from other parts of CDC,” Frieden said. “That includes emergency preparedness dollars that go out to all the states to deal with things like leading the response, doing lab testing, tracking for outbreaks, responding to the health effects of natural disasters and dispensing counter measures. We had to take nearly $50 million of that money and put it toward Zika. The states weren’t happy about that, but we had no choice.”

Several medical organizations have also called on Congress to quickly fund Zika response efforts. On Thursday, The American College of Physicians (ACP), the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a joint statement announcing they had sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to “provide the highest possible funding level for research, prevention, control and treatment” of Zika.

“It is imperative that the House and Senate reach an agreement without further delay; every day that goes by without an agreement is a day where more patients will be at risk of being exposed to the virus,” the organizations wrote.

ACP President Nitin S. Damle, MD, MS, FACP, said in the statement that his patients are growing more anxious about the spread of Zika and the dangers it poses to pregnant women and their children.

“In my own primary care internal medicine practice, I am already hearing from many worried parents who have questions and concerns about the Zika virus,” Damle said. “While I do my best to explain to them what we know today about the potential risks, there is much we don’t know yet about how to prevent, control and treat illnesses that may result from exposure to Zika.”

According to Frieden, nearly 300 pregnant women in the United States and U.S. territories have tested positive for Zika, which is thought to also trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome. Zika can also be transmitted sexually.

“We need a robust response to protect American women and reduce, to the greatest extent humanly possible, the number of families affected,” Frieden said. “We don’t know who those children will be, we don’t know where they will grow up, but anything we don’t do now we will regret not having done later.” – by Jason Laday