President Obama is going to ask Congress for $1.8 billion dollars as an emergency to help fight the Zika virus. He will use the money in mosquito control programs, vaccination research, education, and helping low-income pregnant women get better health care, the White House said Monday.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention is the cause of the request because they announced at its emergency operations center has been put on a “Level 1” status  — its highest level of activation — because of the Zika outbreak.

The CDC has only put its operations center at Level 1 three times in the past: during the Ebola outbreak in 2014; during the H1N1 pandemic in in 2009; and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

President Obama’s plans with the money includes $355 million to spend on foreign aid in place where the virus is spreading quickly like places in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Last week, The World Health Organization called an international public health emergency warning that the illness is suspected to be the cause of a number of cases of microcephaly, a neurological disorder that afflicts the babies of pregnant women with the virus.

“And so we are going to be putting up a legislative proposal to Congress to resource both the research on vaccines and diagnostics but also helping in terms of public health systems,” Obama said to CBS on an interview.

According to Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in an article written by USA Today.com, the money is “an important step and needed measure.” He also said the funding should be focused on low-income areas along the Gulf of Mexico where there are a lot of mosquito-borne diseases partly because the residents can’t afford air conditioning or window screens.

“We’re also going to need to conduct environmental cleanup to help wipe out mosquito breeding areas, while providing quality house screens to pregnant women who live in poverty,” Hotez said.

Another concern is that current diagnostic tests can detect virus’ that include Zika but the results of which virus is which, is not clear at first. Also, The National Institutes of Health want more progress on vaccine research.

USA Today is the source of this article. For more information on President Obama fighting Zika Desease with $1.8 billion, click on the following link: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/08/obama-asks-emergency-zika-funding/80002570/