Health emergency declared in Puerto Rico due to Zika
The Obama administration Friday declared a public health emergency in Puerto Rico due to the Zika virus, which has infected at least 10,690 people. Among them are 1,035 pregnant women, who bear the greatest risk from the infection.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell declared the emergency at the request of Puerto Rico's governor, Alejandro García Padilla, because of the threat to pregnant women and their children. Zika can cause catastrophic birth defects, including microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and, in most cases, incomplete brain development.
The declaration will give Puerto Rico more money to fight the outbreak.
Although Zika is normally a mild illness, causing no symptoms in 80% of patients, 90 people have been hospitalized due to the virus and 30 have developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, which develops when the immune system attacks the body's nerves, causing paralysis.
“This administration is committed to meeting the Zika outbreak in Puerto Rico with the necessary urgency,” Burwell said. "This emergency declaration allows us to provide additional support to the Puerto Rican government and reminds us of the importance of pregnant women, women of childbearing age and their partners taking additional steps to protect themselves and their families from Zika.”
Padilla said he was grateful for the assistance.
"The threat of Zika to future generations of Puerto Ricans is evident, and I feel a responsibility to do everything that is within my reach to make sure we fight the spread of the virus," Padilla said. "This is why we are actively looking for alternatives to prevent the number of infections from increasing."
The declaration allows Puerto Rico to apply for funding to hire unemployed workers to help with mosquito control, outreach and education through the Department of Labor’s National Dislocated Worker Grant program. Puerto Rico also will now be able to request the temporary reassignment of local public health department or agency personnel who are funded through Public Health Service Act.
The Health and Human Services department didn't say exactly how much money Puerto Rico could receive. But they noted that Flint, Mich. recently used the displaced worker grant to distribute bottled water and filters. The Department of Labor gave Flint up to $15 million for skills development and temporary employment.
In addition to microcephaly, Zika is associated with other serious problems, including miscarriage, stillbirth and neurological problems.
Thomas Frieden, director the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said that Zika is on track to infect up to 10,000 pregnant women by the end of the year, potentially harming hundreds of babies.
Some public health experts welcomed the declaration.
"Puerto Rico has been a public health emergency for months in the sense that pregnant women have been exposed daily to Zika virus infection, with the expectation that hundreds if not thousands of babies will be born with microcephaly and fetal brain disruption sequence," said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine. "Less clear are the benefits of making a declaration and the added value in terms of new resources. But there is no question that this has been an emergency for a long time and we knew back in the fall of 2015 that it would reach emergency proportions" in Puerto Rico.
In addition to Zika, Puerto Rico is grappling with a $70 billion debt.
The declaration is the second major step that the Obama administration has taken in the past two days to combat the Zika outbreak.
Burwell announced Thursday that she will transfer $81 million from other areas of her agency to prevent delays on Zika vaccines now in development. Money for Zika vaccine trials was set to run out at the end of the month.
Money for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which launched the first phase of a Zika vaccine trial last week, will come from other institutes within the NIH, Burwell said in a letter to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Burwell will also take money from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Administration for Children and Families, which helps to fight poverty, to fund Zika vaccine research at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA. The move takes away funding from research on other diseases, such as cancer and diabetes.
President Obama asked Congress for $1.9 billion in emergency funding for Zika in February. That request included $246 million in funding to be provided through Medicaid for Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories. Congress has not yet approved Obama's request.