Senior administration officials say they are not walking away from the months-long Zika funding fight with the GOP, even after conceding on a key issue.
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For more information about preventing Zika virus, see this site: http://www.cdc.gov/zika/prevention/. “Today, we reiterate our call on the Congress to take immediate action to provide the full requested amount”. The government was compelled to take the step because without it several key initiatives “would have to be delayed or curtailed or stopped within months”, he added.
However, Congress continues to do nothing about the emergency funding.
Earnest appeared exasperated that lawmakers have balked at approving the funding request given that, unlike Ebola, health officials have advance warning of the Zika virus’ spread.
The administration will repurpose an additional $79 million from other accounts, including funds for emergency medical supplies during epidemics and national vaccine stockpiles. “However, it’s unclear where and how, since the number of tourists coming to Vietnam and the number of Vietnamese traveling overseas are huge”, Dr. Tran Dac Phu, who heads the tropical country’s preventive health department, told VOA. About $374 million will be spent by HHS on domestic activities in fiscal 2016, and about $215 million is planned for global Zika response.
Further research would help develop vaccines and diagnostics, which researchers have already started working on though there are still many unknowns, she said.
Mr. Earnest called the repurposing of Ebola funding for Zika initiatives “a temporary fix and not at all a long-term solution”. Officials also noted that the borrowed Ebola funds will need to be replenished.
Burwell and Donovan reiterated that the administration’s earlier request for supplemental funding from Congress remains in place.
“And we don’t have the option to set one aside in the name of another”, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell told reporters.
Burwell said a recent flare-up of Ebola in West Africa shows the United States can not shortchange its work in the region.
Just days after the World Health Organization said the Ebola outbreak was over, reports of cases in Liberia and Guinea emerged.
Much of USA territory-from California to Virginia to Maine-is in the potential range of the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which have the potential to transmit the Zika virus.
About 40 million people traveling between the continental US and Zika-affected countries.
Brazil said it has confirmed 944 cases of microcephaly, and considers a lot of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. With evidence connecting it to birth defects, the mosquito-borne disease poses a risk to Americans as summer looms.
Zika funding could also come in the appropriations process, which will be kicking off in the Senate later this month.
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“There are real consequences and risks for waiting”, Donovan said. “We can not wait on this supplemental; we can not wait until the fall”.
