New | US disease director: ‘Essentially out of money’ to fight zika virus

The head of the US government’s fight against the Zika virus said that “we are now essentially out of money” and warned that the country is “about to see a bunch of kids born with microcephaly” in the coming months.

Friday’s warning from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden came as lawmakers start to sort out a stopgap government funding bill that is being targeted to also carry long-delayed money to battle Zika.

Zika is spreading more widely in the US and can not only cause microcephaly — in which babies are born with grave brain defects — but other problems that the country will face for decades. And 671 pregnant women in the states and Washington DC, have the virus, leading to the birth of 17 babies with microcephaly so far.

Frieden said funding delays have slowed long-term studies of the disease and production of new tests for it. “We haven’t been able to get a running start” on a long-term battle against Zika, he said.

Frieden added that “we don’t like to see” the use of pesticides such as Friday morning’s spraying of naled, in Miami Beach.