US President Barack Obama will ask Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to tackle the fast spreading Zika virus both at home and abroad, the White House said on Monday.
US President Barack Obama will ask Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to tackle the fast spreading Zika virus both at home and abroad, the White House said on Monday.
The administration will submit the request “shortly,” the White House said in a statement that did not specify a time frame.
“The requested resources will build on our ongoing preparedness efforts and will support essential strategies to combat this virus,” the White House said in a statement.
Zika has been linked to a surge in Latin America of births of children with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads and brains. The World Health Organisation has declared the growing outbreak a global medical emergency.
The hardest hit country is Brazil, which hosts the Summer Olympics starting in August.
Some countries are taking the extraordinary step of urging women to put off having children for now, as it is believed the virus is passed on from infected pregnant women to their foetuses. The continental United States has yet to see cases of transmission of the virus, which is carried by a mosquito.
