Zika fears grow as mosquitoes spread

Top health officials expressed heightened concern about the threat posed to the US by the zika virus, saying the mosquito that spreads it is now present in about 30 states and hundreds of thousands of infections could appear in Puerto Rico.

At a White House briefing, they stepped up pressure on the Republican-led Congress to pass approximately $1.9bn in emergency funding for zika preparedness that the Obama administration requested in February.

“Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought,” said Anne Schuchat, a deputy director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.