WASHINGTON » The Zika virus is a threat to more states than first feared, underscoring the need for Congress to approve the Obama administration’s nearly $2 billion funding request, senior health officials said today.

But even as officials were delivering that new warning, Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s office questioned the White House’s approach for combating the virus’ spread at home and abroad.

U.S. health officials warned today that the mosquitos that carry and spread the Zika virus are present in 30 states, not the dozen feared previously. The virus is now believed to affect women throughout their pregnancies rather than during just the first trimester, Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters at the White House.

In addition to being linked to microcephaly, a birth defect, and one serious autoimmune nervous disorder, officials say there are growing links between the virus and neurological conditions.

Officials do not expect a wide-scale outbreak in the continental United States, Schuchat said, “but that doesn’t mean we won’t have a big problem.”

The health officials warned they lack funds to head that off, even after they transferred nearly $600 million in existing funds from other accounts to anti-Zika efforts.

Health agencies need the full amount in emergency funding the Obama administration asked for: $1.9 billion, National Institutes of Health Director Anthony Fauci said.

Still, he told reporters at the same briefing that he “can’t imagine” Congress won’t eventually dole out the funds, especially as experts learn more.

On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers remain hesitant to cut a $1.9 billion check, especially since the sum would breach federal spending caps.

“We’re glad the administration has agreed to our request to use existing Ebola funds to address the Zika epidemic,” Doug Andres, a Ryan spokesman, said in an email.

“If additional Zika resources are needed those funds could and should be addressed through the regular appropriations process,” Andres said.

GOP appropriators earlier this month declared victory when the White House decided to shift monies away from programs targeting Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis and toward anti-Zika efforts.

“More than a month ago we called on the administration to use existing funding and legal authorities to provide the most immediate and effective response to the Zika outbreak,” House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., and other senior GOP members of that panel said in an April 6 statement. “We are pleased to hear today that federal agencies are heeding our call.”

Republicans have yet to take a firm position on whether they believe additional Zika dollars will be needed this fiscal year.

“We will look carefully at the details of today’s proposal by the administration to ensure the best and most effective use of these funds, and to provide proper oversight,” Rogers and the other appropriators said. “As we move forward, the Appropriations Committee will continue to monitor the changing needs resulting from this unpredictable crisis to assure the resources necessary for the response are available.”

Meantime, in an ominous finding, Schuchat said there could be hundreds of thousands of Zika cases in Puerto Rico.

Such outbreaks are another reason Congress should allocate the funds, Schuchat and Fauci told reporters. That’s because the United States is working closely with Caribbean and Latin American countries on countering the disease, they said.

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