[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 135 (Thursday, September 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H5203-H5204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ZIKA VIRUS: A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY
(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House
for 1 minute.)
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, you have heard the cries of our
colleagues. You have heard the cries of the American people. Redundancy
is not a question here. It is telling the truth. In fact, our health
professionals have indicated that the Zika virus presents an
unprecedented threat to the people of our Nation, especially to
pregnant women. We cannot hear this often enough, and although busy
with the beginning of the school year and with going back to work, it
is important to warn the American people of this impending and ongoing
threat.
While we are fiddling and doing things that have no impact on
providing a portion of the $1.9 billion that is needed by the American
people, we have 1,600 cases of Zika virus in the United States--200
plus women who are pregnant and 35 known transmitted diseases here in
the United States of the Zika virus. We also now know, through health
professionals, that it is sexually transmitted. We know that the entire
United States is vulnerable, but most of the vulnerable States are in
the Gulf region.
It is time now to address the question of funding without riders,
like preventing Planned Parenthood from getting funding, and without
riders for allowing the Confederate flag to be in a veterans' cemetery.
Where is our concern about the American people--for the people in
Louisiana with a lot of water? for the people in Texas with a lot of
water? in Florida? in Puerto Rico?
It is important that this funding comes now to rapidly expand
mosquito control programs and to accelerate a vaccine. That is really
important--to be able to provide the American people with a vaccine.
They are in the midst of the research. They need the funding. The CDC
and the NIH have reprogrammed more money than they have to try to help
those who are desperate.
I make the argument that it is time now for us to do the job. The
other body needs to engage in providing a bill, and this body, this
House, needs to stop playing those kinds of politics and provide the
funding--the funding that does not take from Ebola but the funding that
the American people need to be safe.
Mr. Speaker, we are currently in a state of a public health crisis as
a result of the growing rate of Zika infections across the country.
Sadly, we are failing as our nation's leaders in our ability to
respond to this crisis.
As days and month go by it is alarming and the level of action and
inaction my colleagues are taking to hamper the ability of our federal
government to respond to this rapidly growing public threat.
In particular, I am concerned that we--as a body of Congress--have
not taken the critical steps to move forward and appropriate necessary
funding that will help screen, treat, vaccinate and test deadly cases
of Zika infections.
According to the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, Congress should
be looking for ways to strengthen our nation's regulatory system by
identifying gaps and instituting new science-based safeguards for the
public.
I cannot agree more--as we are now in perilous times where the Zika
virus presents unprecedented threats to the people of our nation.
As cited by Tom Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention and Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in
an op-ed, dated August 21, 2016:
There have been more than 16,800 cases of Zika infection reported to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. and its
territories, including more than 2,700 on the mainland.
Laboratory tests have confirmed that 1,595 pregnant women have been
infected with the virus, and tragically, 17 babies have been born with
birth defects related to Zika.
As highlighted by Frieden and Fauci--``We have an obligation to meet
the Zika threat and protect this country''--as ``the potential cost of
a funding shortfall will be measured in human misery and even death.''
Now is not the time to pass measures or engage in futile debates that
will undermine or slow the ability of our federal and local governments
to address and respond to this growing threat and active cases of Zika
infections.
Rather, we need to invest in stopping this deadly, but preventable
virus, before it is too late.
We cannot afford to stand by with our hands tied any longer.
Our limited time as the days in September wain down cannot be wasted.
We should be focused on the crucial mission of protecting our
nation's people.
That is why, in these critical times of need, I am calling upon my
colleagues to place the growing epidemic of the Zika virus at the top
of our priorities and demand no less than fully financed measures to
timely and adequately respond to this devastating and deadly public
health emergency.
[From Time, Sept. 7, 2016]
How To Fight Zika and Cure Nation's Ailing Public Health System--Enact
a Law to Respond Quickly to Threats
(By Sheila Jackson Lee)
There is an excellent model that demonstrates how the U.S.
should reform the current reactive model of public health
emergency management--it is the solution found to address
disasters established by the Stafford Disaster Relief and
Emergency Assistance Act. Under the Stafford Act, enacted in
1974 and later updated in 1988, authorizes the President of
the United States, when disaster strikes, to deploy the
coordinated efforts and resources of the federal government
to save lives and property, and restore communities hit hard
by a calamity. The federal government provides warnings of
hurricanes and floods, and in cases of wildfires dispatches
resources to extinguish flames before they threaten people
and property.
The knowledge of public health experts, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, policy makers, health-care
professionals and patient advocacy organizations should be
brought together with the relevant committees in the House
and Senate to develop measurable criteria to create baselines
for defining, responding and mitigating public health threats
to effectively and immediately without the delay engendered
by the need for Congress to pass an emergency supplemental
appropriations.
The U.S. must be capable of responding quickly to emerging
threats that are identified anywhere in the world. The Ebola
and Zika viruses for examples existed in other
[[Page H5204]]
nations for many years before they became a clear and present
threat to public health in the Western Hemisphere and the
U.S. The cost of waiting until a public health threat is
present in the U.S. increases the threat to our nation's
public health systems; it reduces the likelihood of success
in winning the battle against a pathogen and it risks a new
contagious disease becoming endemic--akin to the common cold.
In addition, the cost of putting down a public health threat
increases as time passes.
There is a long history of threats to public health posed
by pathogens. In March 1918, in Kansas, the U.S. had its
first case of the Spanish Flu, which is recorded as the first
H1N1 flu epidemic. This pandemic killed 50 million persons
worldwide it ended abruptly in 1919. The mortality rate of
the Spanish Flu was as high as 1 death for every 5 infections
and 50% of the deaths, or about 25 million, occurred in the
first 25 weeks of the outbreak. We are now in the 31st week
of the Zika Virus global health emergency, which was declared
by the World Health Organization on Feb. 1, 2016.
The world is still battling the HIV/AID global pandemic,
which became known to public health experts well before the
disease made it into the United States. Still, it took
President Clinton's efforts to put the full force of the
federal government behind finding an effective treatment for
HIV that slowed the progression of the disease from becoming
full blown AIDs. By 2011, more than 6o million people
globally had been infected by AIDS and 25 million had died.
The legislative process has proven itself not to respond in
a timely manner to public health threats. The U.S. to be more
robust enough needs to have in place mechanisms designed to
respond systemically to federally declared public health
emergencies and deliver assistance to support state and local
governments in carrying out their responsibility to protect
the public health. This is the second time in three years
that a global health emergency has been declared that
required Congress to act by passing a new law to fund the
national response. This is the second time that the
legislative process failed to act quickly when the public
health threat was known and its consequences were clearly
understood by domestic infectious disease experts.
On Aug. 24, 2014, the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Ministry of Health notified the World Health Organization of
an outbreak of Ebola virus. On Oct. 8, 2014, Ebola claimed
the life of Thomas Eric Duncan after he presented symptoms at
the time of admission to an emergency room. He had recently
traveled to a country where the disease was actively being
transmitted; he had a fever over too degrees accompanied by
abdominal pain, dizziness, nausea and headache.
Communications had gone to public health officials,
hospitals, and health-care providers from the Centers for
Disease Control stating that all patients should be asked
whether they had traveled to West Africa recently; and
checked for sytnptoms of Ebola, which include a dangerously
high fever, abdominal pain, nausea and headache.
Unfortunately, Mr. Duncan having all of the symptoms to be
considered a possible Ebola patient was not admitted for
observation, tests, and treatment, but instead sent home.
As of April 13, 2016, globally there were 28,652 suspected
Ebola cases; 15,261 laboratory confirmed Ebola cases and
11,325 deaths from Ebola. Today, the CDC continue to monitor
for Ebola disease outbreaks. We can no longer act as if a
disease outbreak in a nation on the other side of the world
has no relevance or importance to the public health status of
communities within the U.S. In fact, we know that this is not
the case. H1N1, Ebola, and Zika viruses are hard lessons to
the global health community teaching that the world has
changed and that it is time the U.S. adjusts by becoming
proactive and cease being reactive in preparing for and
defending against public health threats and emergencies.
Establishing a model that is quantitative and based upon
measurable changes in public health conditions around the
world as well as within the U.S. and having the capacity to
react quickly can save lives and assures public health system
stability. Our nation has some local health-care systems that
are second to none, such as the Houston Medical Center, but
our national public health system has glaring weaknesses when
handling pathogens that may be as dangerous as Ebola and as
contagious as the Spanish Flu. There are only four hospitals
in the U.S., and a total of 15-16 beds, for persons infected
with a human viral hemorrhagic fever: Emory University
Hospital in Atlanta has two Ebola beds, St. Patrick Hospital
in Missoula, Montana, has one or two; National Institutes of
Health in Bethesda, Maryland, has the capacity to treat two
patients in its Special Clinical Studies Unit, according to
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at
the NIH; and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, reportedly has
a biocontainment facility with 10 beds total.
The public health challenge for our nation is to
effectively address the sudden emergence of a highly
contagious pathogen with a mortality rate of 1 in 5 so that
the public health threat may be identified within hours of
patient zero, a team of public health experts deployed with
the requisite equipment and resources within 24 hours to any
point on the globe, establish field labs, hospitals,
coordinate with local public health officials, communicate
with public health and disease experts globally; type and
identify the threat; its method of transmission; and
determine what is needed to contain the threat; while
beginning work on treatments and potential cures. Their work
would also be to calculate mortality rates and the point when
the disease may become endemic over a 25 week time period to
stop its spread, which should include communicating to local,
state and tribal public health officials' the information
they will need to prepare to face the threat that may be just
a flight away.
A Public Health Relief and Emergency Assistance Law is
overdue--I urge the leadership of the House and the Senate to
work in a bipartisan fashion to put on the desk of the
President of the United States a law that will be the cure
for the weaknesses in our nation's public health system when
it is faced with public health emergencies.
____
President Obama is calling on Congress to fight the Zika
virus by providing $1.8 billion in emergency funds to:
Rapidly expand mosquito control programs.
Accelerate vaccine research and diagnostic development
Educate health providers, women, and partners about the
disease.
Improve health services and support for low-income pregnant
women.
Help Zika-affected countries better control transmission.
How is Zika transmitted?
Zika is primarily spread to people through the bite of
infected Aedes mosquitoes. It can also be transmitted from a
pregnant mother to her baby during pregnancy, though we do
not know how often that transmission occurs.
There is also evidence that the Zika virus can be sexually
transmitted by a man to his partners. At this time, however,
there is no evidence that women can transmit the Zika virus
to their sex partners. You can learn more about the Zika
virus and guidance to avoid sexual transmission.
Where are people contracting Zika?
People are contracting Zika in areas where Aedes mosquitoes
are present, which include South America, Central America and
the Caribbean. As the CDC notes, specific areas where the
Zika virus is being transmitted are likely to change over
time.
Who is at risk of being infected?
Anyone who is living in or traveling to an area where the
virus is found is at risk for infection.
Why are there specific recommendations for pregnant women?
There may be a link between a serious birth defect called
microcephaly--a condition in which a baby's head is smaller
than expected--and other poor pregnancy outcomes and a Zika
infection in a mother during pregnancy. While the link
between Zika and these outcomes is being investigated the CDC
recommends that you take special precautions if you fall into
one of these groups:
If you are pregnant (in any trimester):
You should consider postponing travel to any area where the
Zika virus is active.
____________________