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Nearly 300 Pregnant Women in US Test Positive for Zika Virus

CBN

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that they are following nearly 300 pregnant women in the United States and Puerto Rico who have tested positively for the Zika virus.

Health officials fear the situation could get much worse before it gets better. That's because the virus is primarily spread through mosquito bites.

As the weather warms up mosquito populations will explode compared to what they were during the past six months when the Zika virus first appeared on our radar.

Although the Zika virus is infecting the general population, it is of little concern to anyone except pregnant women.

But in the case of expectant mothers the concern is very grave indeed. Zika has been conclusively linked to severe birth defects, particularly microcephaly, which causes babies to be born with small heads and debilitating brain damage.

Hundreds of babies have been born with microcephaly in Columbia and Brazil to mothers who were infected with the Zika virus during pregnancy. Those two nations were the hardest hit with Zika outbreaks in the western hemisphere last year.

This is the first time the CDC released the number of pregnant women in the U.S. and Puerto Rico who have Zika, although it will not be the last. In fact, the government health organization says it will update and release this data every week.

Of the nearly 300 Zika-infected pregnant women in the United States and its territories, the largest number, 122, are concentrated in Puerto Rico. Another 157 are scattered throughout the region.

Some of them have shown symptoms of the virus, which are generally mild, flu-like reactions. However, many of the Zika-infected pregnant women have not experienced any symptoms at all.

In the U.S. and its territories, one child reportedly had microcephaly from Zika. That male fetus, from Puerto Rico, did not survive. Whether the child was aborted or miscarried has not been made public.  The Zika virus has been known to cause miscarriages in infected mothers.

Today President Barack Obama is meeting with health officials to discuss how much emergency funding to approve to fight Zika.

So far the House and Senate are far apart on the amount. The House approved $622 million, the Senate: a whopping $1.1 billion. 

The president says even that's not enough. He wants to spend $1.9 billion to fight Zika.

He's meeting with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tom Frieden.

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