Building a Resilient Tomorrow by Alice C. Hill

Author:Alice C. Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

Part III

The Upenders

[7]

Harden the Health Care System, and Make It Smarter

On December 28, 2015, the New York Times ran a story that sent shivers down the spine of public health workers around the globe. The story described the appearance of a virus in Brazil that was being spread by mosquitos. Despite its catchy name—Zika—the virus carries devastating consequences for babies in the womb. Though not typically life-threatening, Zika is known to cause microcephaly, an incurable form of brain damage in newborns whose mothers have been infected with the virus during pregnancy. Fetuses had displayed such catastrophic brain damage that some prominent obstetricians in Brazil were advising their patients not to get pregnant.

It was the third paragraph of the article that particularly grabbed the attention of White House officials. It quoted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warning that the number of Zika cases imported to the United States would “likely increase and may result in local spread of the virus in some areas of the United States.”1 Before the New York Times report appeared, few on the National Security Council staff at the White House had been tracking the Zika virus. But the CDC announcement changed all that. Zika quickly came to dominate daily life for many at the White House, just as its staff was winding down the administration’s response to the threatened spread of the deadly Ebola epidemic. In January 2016, the Zika virus likely appeared in the United States for the first time; a baby was born in Hawaii with the virus and microcephaly to a mother who had lived in Brazil.

As concern mounted, the authorities swung into action. The White House convened a task force to oversee the response, and the CDC created a Zika Pregnancy Registry to track potential cases and medical outcomes. The following month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak an international health emergency. The White House sent a request to Congress for $1.8 billion in emergency funding to fight the spread of the disease, though the proposal quickly got ensnared in politics. In August, the CDC instructed pregnant women and their partners to stay away from one of Miami’s trendiest neighborhoods, which had emerged as the epicenter of Zika in the country. It was the first time the CDC had ever advised the public not to travel to a community in the continental United States to avoid catching an infectious disease. Within weeks, Florida began aggressively spraying pesticides to stop the outbreak and continued to do so despite public opposition. By the end of the year, the CDC’s Zika registry had received reports from forty-four states of pregnant women who had tested positive for Zika infection. Of the reported births from mothers with confirmed cases of Zika, an alarming 10 percent of the babies had birth defects.2

Zika’s growing reach serves as a cautionary tale. Health experts expect mosquitos to migrate to new areas as temperatures rise, further spreading not only the Zika virus, but also viruses such as Dengue, West Nile, and Chikungunya.

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