Educating communities and empowering women on how to prevent Zika virus transmission is the focus of a new collaborative effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the CDC Foundation, aimed mainly at pregnant women in U.S. territories and the Americas. 

The CDC Foundation today announced a partnership with CDC and multiple donors to create Zika prevention kits for pregnant women in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.

As the Zika virus continues to spread quickly through many countries in the Americas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is accelerating its response to combat this health threat. At CDC’s request, the CDC Foundation has activated two funds: the U.S. Emergency Response Fund and the Global Disaster Response Fund. 

The CDC Foundation is partnering with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Blood Disorders within the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, the California Rare Disease Surveillance Program (a project of the Public Health Institute, located in Oakland, CA) and Pfizer Inc. to support the development and implementation of a longitudinal data collection system for Americans with sickle cell disease.