NOTICIAS

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement today after the Florida Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first four cases of the Zika virus to be ‎transmitted by mosquito, all in Florida:

“The news is disturbing, but no one should be surprised. I’ve been warning Congress for months that we would eventually have locally transmitted cases of Zika virus in the United States, and sadly that has now become a reality. We need to prepare ourselves for more locally transmitted cases to emerge in the weeks ahead. All of us must redouble our efforts to protect our families from mosquitoes and, wherever possible, to prevent water from pooling where mosquitos might breed.

“We are entering a critical phase of this crisis. Local mosquito transmissions and increased travel to the U.S. from Zika-affected regions are a dangerous combination that could lead to an explosive increase in infections. We must act quickly to prevent the problem from reaching a tipping point in the mainland U.S. as it already has in Puerto Rico.

“I urge the Obama Administration to use all the tools at its disposal to reprogram existing public health emergency funding in the short term to deal with Zika. As I have said time and time again, both parties in Congress need to get it together and approve funding to combat the Zika virus.”