President Barack Obama will ask Congress to create an emergency fund of more than 1,800 million dollars to fight Zika virus in both the United States and abroad, said Monday the White House.
The government forward "shortly" the request to Congress, according to a statement from the presidency, without specifying the date.
The text states that the requested resources will be allocated to "support essential strategies to combat this virus."
Most people infected with the virus in the United States have traveled to areas where the mosquito that transmits the disease, Aedes aegypti, is common. This is also mosquito vector of dengue and chincunguña.
However, US officials have confirmed a case of sexual transmission of Zika virus in his country.
The zika spreads extremely fast in South America and Central America but also in the US territory of Puerto Rico. US officials fear above all that, when spring and summer, the Aedes aegypti reach the southern states.
The zika occurs in 80% of cases similar to the flu, symptoms and may even go unnoticed. Its effects are especially dangerous for pregnant women, because the possibility that the virus is related to the increase in cases of microcephaly among newborns whose mothers have contracted what is studied.
its relation to an increase in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing neurological disease syndrome is also studied.