In U.S., the blood center and the hospitals has been mandated to conduct a blood screening of the blood donations. However, this mandate was not funded by the government. Thus, the center found it extremely expensive and extremely painful to have the blood screened. This has been done to be ready of the plague of the Zika virus.
The United States is sending clean blood to prevent further spread of Zika virus in Puerto Rico because blood transfusion is seen as a means of transmitting the mosquito-borne virus. Request for funding has also been submitted to Congress.
Latin American health officials agreed to have an emergency meeting against the Zika virus outbreak Wednesday, Feb. 3. The meeting was held in Montevideo, Uruguay, participated by 14 health officials including Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Castro.
