>> u.s. health officials monitoring 300 pregnant women with the zika virus according to federal data. president obama convened a meeting with a number of government health officials to get the latest on efforts to combat the zika virus in the oval office. this is about 10 minutes.

president obama: i am delighted to have the opportunity to get a full briefing from secretary burwell about the zika situation. i want to give the american people an update on where we are. as has been explained repeatedly, but i want to reemphasize, zika is not like ebola. it is not a human to human transmission, with one exception . it is primarily transmitted through mosquitoes, a particular type of mosquito. what we do know is that if you contract zika, even if you do not appear to have significant symptoms, it is possible for zika to cause significant birth defects, including microcephaly where the skull casing -- the

head of the infant -- is significantly smaller. we think there may be other neurological disorders caused as a consequence of zika. we do not know all of the potential effects. we do know that they are serious. what we have seen is a little over 500 cases of zika in the continental united states. they all appear to be travel-related. not mosquito transmitted. meaning someone from the u.s. went to an area that has zika, got a bite, and came back. we have seen 10 cases in which an individual went to one of the various areas, got infected, and sexually transmitted the good to their partner. a more significant and immediate concern is puerto rico, where we know there are over 800 cases that have been diagnosed. however, we suspect that it

could be significantly higher. the reason is that for most people you might not have a lot of symptoms when you get zika. if you are not pregnant, or the partner of someone who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant, you may not even know that you end up having zika. that means people are not affirmatively going to the doctor and getting tested on these issues. here is the good news, that because of the good work that has been done by the department of health and human services by the cdc and in -- and nih, we

have a plan over the next several months to begin developing a vaccine and continually improve our diagnostic tests. we are also working with all of the states so they are properly prepared if we start seeing an outbreak in the continental united states during the summer when obviously mosquitoes are more active. what we are also trying to do is develop new tools for vector control. meaning, how do we kill mosquitoes and reduce their populations, particularly this kind of mosquito. that is a tricky business. we have been using insecticides for a long time that have become less and less effective. this strain of mosquitoes has become resistant to the insecticide that we have. the methods we use are not as effective as they used to be. we are investing time, research, and logistical support to local communities to start improving our ability to control mosquitoes. puerto rico and to some of the territories, and spending time working with the states that they can be better prepared.

all of this work costs money. we have put forward a package of that costs $1.9 billion in emergency funding for us to make sure we are doing effective mosquito control. to make sure we are developing effective diagnostic tools, distributing them, and developing vaccines that will prevent some of the tragedies that we have seen for those who have contracted zika and end up having children with significant birth defects. we did not just choose $1.9 billion from the top of our heads. this was based on public health assessment of all of the work that needs to be done. to the extent that we want to be able to feel safe, secure, and

families who are of childbearing years want to feel as though they can have confidence that when they travel, when they want to start a family, that this is not an issue. to the extent that we think that is important, this is a modest investment for us to get those insurances. unfortunately, we have the senate approving a package that would fund a little over half of what has been requested. the house, so far, has approved about one third of the money requested, except that money is taken from the fund we are currently using to continue to monitor and fight against ebola. effectively, there's no new money. all the house has done is say you can rob peter to pay paul. given that i have vivid memories of how concerned people were about ebola, the notion that w would stop monitoring as effectively in dealing with the bolo to deal with zika does not make a lot of sense. i do not think it will make a lot of sense to the american people. this is something that is

solvable. it is not something we have to panic about. it is something we have to take seriously. if we make a modest investment on the front end, this will be a problem we don't have to deal with on the back end. every child that has something with microcephaly, that may cost $10 million over the lifetime of that child in terms of that family providing that child with support they need. besides the pain and sorrow and challenges that they will go through. add that up. it doesn't take a lot of cases for you to get to $1.9 billion. why wouldn't we want to make that investment now? my hope is that we would have a bill i could sign now. part of what we are trying to do is to accelerate and get the process going for vaccines. you do not get a vaccine overnight. you have to test it to make sure any potential vaccine is safe. you have to test to make sure it is effective. you have to conduct trials where you are testing it on a large enough bunch of people that you can make scientific determinations that it is effective. we have to get moving.

what essentially the cdc and nih have been doing is taking money from other things just to get the thing rolling. we have to reimburse the money that has already been depleted, and we have to sustain the work that is going to be done to finish the job. congress needs to get me a bill. it is to get me a bill with significant funds to do the job. they should not be going off on recess before this is done. certainly, this has to get done over the course of the next several weeks in order for us to be able to provide confidence to the american people that we are handling the zika business. if i am a young family or someone they came up starting a family, this is a piece of insurance i want to purchase. i think that is true for most americans. understand that this is not something where we can build a wall to prevent mosquitoes to not go through customs. to the extent where we are not handling this on the front end, we will have bigger problems on the back end. for those of you that are listening, tell your members of congress to get on the job on this. that this is something we could handle. many do confidence on our ability to handle it. we have outstanding scientists and researchers who are in the process of getting this done. they have to have the support

from the public in order for us to accomplish our goal. thank you very much. >> on newsmakers, next hour very discusses defense authorization