Experts call for urgent action on Zika in the US

Now that US health experts have officially confirmed that Zika infection during pregnancy causes the birth defect microcephaly, it is hoped efforts to fund emergency prevention will increase. The Obama Administration has been urging the Republican-controlled Congress to grant around $1.9bn in emergency funds to help fight the Zika virus, which is already affecting Puerto Rico and is predicted to hit parts of the US in mosquito-friendly warmer weather. Meanwhile, two US public health law experts, Lawrence O Gostin and James G Hodge, warn that the US is unprepared for the virus, adding that the financial and moral consequences will be significant. “Imagine if nine months after clusters of Zika cases emerge in the United States, babies are born with abnormalities. It will cause a moral outrage,” Gostin said. US Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell has also warned that the Zika virus has a “significant potential to affect national security or the health of Americans.”

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that there was now enough evidence to definitively say that the Zika virus could cause unusually small heads and brain damage in infants born to infected mothers.

The conclusion should settle months of debate about the connection between the infection and these birth defects, called microcephaly, as well as other neurological abnormalities, the officials said.

“There is no longer any doubt that Zika causes microcephaly,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director. He said the conclusion, reached after evaluating “mounting evidence from many studies,” signifies “an unprecedented association” in medicine.

“Never before in history has there been a situation where a bite from a mosquito can result in a devastating malformation,” Dr. Frieden said.