The ongoing issues related to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the Zika virus are still emerging, however the policy implications have certainly taken shape. The President’s recent budget includes an $1.8 billion request from Congress to respond to the Zika virus, which is a mosquito-borne illness discovered in Uganda in 1947 but has since spread across Asia and to the Americas. Recent outbreaks of Zika in pregnant women have been found to be linked to very serious health conditions such as microcephaly (a birth defect resulting in tiny heads) and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (an immune-mediated neurologic condition). The virus has been declared a pandemic which according to the World Health Organization refers to the worldwide spread of a disease. There is no vaccine and no treatment for Zika; only an antibody test to find out if you have it, which is far from perfect.

The implications of Zika in the United States are still unfolding; while there might have seemed like an increased succession of potentially deadly viruses over the past decade (H1N1/Avian Influenza, Chikungunya, Ebola), the policy response is complex: overshooting the response results in potentially wasted dollars and misaligned resources. But underestimating the need is not only a health crisis, but potentially even more expensive as resources usually need to be marshaled quickly and with little planning. The current budget request proposes money across many of the agencies which deal with healthcare as well as the State Department, given the global implications of the pandemic and worldwide scale of the virus.