Letter to The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and The Honorable Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader - Moore, Fitzpatrick Lead House Members in a Bipartisan Letter Calling for Additional Funds For Research To Guide COVID-19 Treatment for Mothers and their Babies

Letter

As Congress weighs further options to strengthen the federal response to the COVID-19
pandemic, we urge you to include at least $100 million in the next response package for the
Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies program at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC). Further, it is critical that Congress build on and sustain this
capacity beyond the current crisis to ensure the United States retains a national program to
quickly identify and respond to new threats to mothers and infants as they emerge.
The 2016 Zika virus supplemental spending bill (P.L. 114-223) provided resources to nearly
every state to support a surveillance system to monitor the health of moms and babies, which set
the foundation for the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies program which
was established to detect and respond to public health crises that threaten the health and
wellbeing of pregnant and postpartum people, infants and young children. It was created to
continuously monitor the short-term and long-term impacts and the needs of mothers and infants
caused by emerging health threats and provide the infrastructure to quickly surge surveillance
capacity during events like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Program data helps to support the monitoring and efforts to improve the health of pregnant
women and infants and to link families to medical and social services to get recommended care.
Program benefits also include strengthening laboratory and clinical testing to find emerging
health threats quickly to targeted populations and contributing to efforts to ensure that public
health systems are ready to meet the needs of pregnant women and infants during emergencies.
During the Zika virus outbreak, the program helped local and state public health officials collect
real-time data to help inform clinical guidance, identify communities with local transmission,
and appropriately allocate scarce public health resources.
However, a failure to sustain federal funding since 2016 has diminished the program's scope.
Whereas nearly all states participated then, today, the program collects data in only 13 states and
jurisdictions on the impacts of infectious diseases and other health threats on pregnant women
and their children through the first three years of life.
The need for greater investment program now is clear. There is currently limited information on
the impact of COVID-19 on these populations. For pregnant and postpartum women, or for
families with infants and young children, the short-term and long-term health implications of
COVID-19 remain uncertain. If robustly funded, the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to
Mothers and Babies program would work to fill the knowledge gaps in clinical care using realtime data collection and help direct public health resources.
The few studies that are available regarding this population highlight the need for properly
funding this program. A recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine
highlighted data from two New York City hospitals that implemented universal testing among
pregnant women admitted for delivery. As a result, the hospitals found that roughly 88 percent of
the pregnant patients who tested positive presented no symptoms of COVID-19[1]. Another early
analysis of COVID-19 patients suggests that cases may be more severe in infants compared to
older children and teenagers.
Yet, there remains much we do not know. To date, CDC has not released sufficient
recommendations specific to the care, evaluation, or management of COVID-19 for pregnant
patients or infants. Investing in programs like the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers
and Babies program can help us get those answers.
By providing $100 million for the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies
program, lawmakers will ensure local and state health departments across the country receive
necessary resources to collect and analyze data on the impact of COVID-19 on pregnant and
postpartum patients and their newborns, and quickly turn that data into guidance to inform the
care of this at-risk population. By sustaining that funding in years to come, Congress can
guarantee that this at-risk population is protected against future threats.
We thank you for your support of the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies
program and hope that you will work to ensure the inclusion of $100 million in funding for this
critical program in the next COVID-19 package.