[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 10, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         EMERGENCY REQUEST FOR $1.8 BILLION TO FIGHT ZIKA VIRUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Hawaii (Ms. Gabbard) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. GABBARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to strongly urge my colleagues 
to support the President's emergency request of $1.8 billion to fight 
the spread of the Zika virus, a dangerous, mosquito-borne illness that 
has surfaced in my home State of Hawaii and in at least 12 other States 
across the country.
  The symptoms and effects of the Zika virus, which have prompted an 
international public health emergency from the World Health 
Organization, are not dissimilar to another mosquito-borne disease, 
Dengue fever.
  Dengue fever is spread through the very same Aedes aegypti mosquito 
as carries the Zika virus, as well as other mosquito variations. Like 
the Zika virus, Dengue fever symptoms include fevers, rashes, joint and 
muscle pains, severe headaches, and other painful symptoms.
  The CDC has reported the harmful symptoms and effects of both Zika 
and Dengue and the ability of both of these diseases to spread very 
rapidly through mosquitos present in many regions of the United States, 
including in my home district.
  So far, there have been around 50 cases of Zika virus confirmed in 
the United States. But in the past 16 weeks, there have been 252 known 
cases of Dengue fever on Hawaii Island alone.
  Now, Mayor Billy Kenoi, Hawaii County's mayor, on Monday announced a 
state of emergency for the county to deploy more resources to battle 
this Dengue fever outbreak.
  I have asked our Governor to declare a state of emergency in response 
to this outbreak so that the people of Hawaii can receive every 
resource available to protect themselves, to eradicate this mosquito 
and its breeding grounds, and stop the spread of Dengue fever, which 
has quickly become the largest outbreak in the State of Hawaii since 
the 1940s.
  The CDC has activated its emergency operations center to level 1 
status. Now, to put this level 1 status in context, the CDC has only 
raised the emergency operations center to level 1 three times in the 
past: during the Ebola outbreak in 2014, during the H1N1 pandemic in 
2009, and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
  The President's leadership and emergency request on this urgent issue 
is warranted and necessary to respond aggressively to the Zika virus 
early on. He is treating this with the seriousness it deserves, 
recognizing this global public health threat, the impacts, and long-
lasting effects of which still are not fully known.
  At the end of last year, Congress came together and passed a 
bipartisan omnibus spending bill that increased funding for public 
health preparedness and response by more than $52 million than the 
previous fiscal year, but this additional emergency funding request is 
necessary now in communities like mine on Hawaii Island and in 
different parts of the country to combat disease-transmitting mosquito 
viruses like Zika and Dengue fever.
  It is imperative that Congress, Federal agencies, local governments, 
and private sector partners partner together to take action now to deal 
with the outbreaks we already have and prevent something far worse from 
occurring.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to push this critical 
public health funding forward.

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