The number of pregnant women with the Zika virus in the United States is at nearly 300. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the details Friday as Congress and the President argue over how much money to spend on the disease.
279 women in the U.S. and U.S. territories have now been infected with the Zika virus while pregnant. Doctors and those in public health are watching those pregnancies carefully. Even women who never had symptoms discovered they had Zika through lab tests.
Dr. Denise Jamieson, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said "Early on in the outbreak, we had hoped that women without symptoms would not have adverse pregnancy outcomes, and we now know that is not true."
The CDC reports that of those 279 pregnant women, fewer than a dozen have had negative outcomes so far including miscarriages. Zika is also known to cause severe brain damage in the developing fetus.
Jamieson said, "We will be following these babies born to mothers with evidence of Zika infection for at least one year and in some cases, up to three years."
President Obama got an update on the Zika situation Friday morning. He met with members of the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC, and The National Institutes of Health. The White House has asked for $1.9 billion in emergency Zika funding.
President Obama said, "Congress needs to get me a bill. It needs to get me a bill that has sufficient funds to do the job."
He says that job includes increased surveillance, testing, and work on a vaccine.
So far Congress doesn't seem willing to give the President as much as he's asking for. The funding bill with the most support right now sets aside a little more than $1 billion.
