Cuts to the CDC, the Epidemiology & Laboratory Capacity grants, and the Public Health Emergency Preparedness fund will greatly impair the United States' public health response to the Zika virus, said several public health agencies at a webinar hosted by the Big Cities Health Coalition, the National Association of County and City Officials (NACCHO), and the March of Dimes.
The call also discussed the potential impact of the American Health Care Act (ACHA), where changes in the essential benefits package may impact access to care for pregnant women and their infants -- and could impair the ability to fight Zika.
The largest impact would be to the CDC budget, which may be cut by $1.2 billion, including a loss of $38 million in money to study birth defects. In addition, the U.S. Zika Pregnancy Registry was only funded for a year, with that money scheduled to run out in July and at the end of the fiscal year in September.
But it is the $109 million cut to the Public Health Emergency Preparedness fund that may have the most local impact. Officials from NACCHO argued that over half of local health departments in the U.S. rely solely on this funding. They added that this funding has been cut by 30% over a decade.
They concluded that sustained funding is necessary to mount an effective response to the Zika virus, and more outbreaks may be expected this summer, especially in the Gulf Coast regions in southern tier states.
New Research Into How Zika Causes Microcephaly
A specific neurodevelopmental protein called Mushashi-1 (MSI1) is hijacked by the Zika virus in the developing embryo, which may enable the virus to replicate in the fetal brain. Researchers writing in Science said this is the first study to show a link between a specific protein, Zika virus, and microcephaly. They found that Zika hijacks MSI1, so the protein binds to the virus, which not only allows cells to replicate, but makes them more vulnerable to cell death. Conversely, when cells were unable to produce MSI1, Zika was unable to replicate as efficiently. The authors confirmed the importance of MSI1 in growing a normal-sized brain by showing that the protein was mutated in individuals with a rare form of microcephaly that was unrelated to the Zika virus.
Zika Vaccine Price Questioned (NPR)
The U.S. Army plans to grant an exclusive license to the French company Sanofi Pasteur to manufacture and market a vaccine against the Zika virus -- a vaccine that the Army developed and the U.S. taxpayers paid for.
The Department of Health and Human Services intends to offer Sanofi more than $170 million for phase II and III trials, according to a report from NPR.