“Reallocating NIH resources is not consistent with a strategy to provide maximum support to the important work that our nation’s leading scientists are performing, but the lack of a clean, bipartisan Zika funding bill has left me no choice”, Burwell wrote.
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Burwell said the funding was meant to keep Zika vaccine research going despite the lack of funding from United States lawmakers, who left for summer recess before allocating any funding to Zika research and preparedness.
Mr. Obama earlier this year asked for some $1.9 billion to fight the mosquito-borne Zika, saying the country was facing the possibility of an epidemic.
But the institute’s Zika money will run out at the end of the month, said director Anthony Fauci. While transferring money from other institutes will help fight Zika, Fauci said, “we’re taking money away from cancer and diabetes and all these things”.
“Today’s action is long overdue, and the Obama administration should do even more to find unspent funds that can be redirected toward fighting Zika in Florida, ” Rubio said of Burwell’s decision to transfer $81 million.
On Thursday Burwell said that the shifting of funds was a last-ditch effort.
In her letter, Burwell said the US$47 million in funding for BARDA will allow the agency to enter into contracts with key partners to develop vaccines.
“All of that is extremely damaging to the biomedical enterprise”, Fauci said. With more funds, the second phase of the trial would have been delayed. Doctors have diagnosed Zika in 1,825 people in the continental USA, including 479 pregnant women, according to the CDC.
The New York State Department of Health unveiled a Zika Prevention Kit for pregnant women during the rollout of a Zika Information hotline and website, in New York, NY, on August 2, 2016.
Pelosi told reporters at a Thursday news conference on Capitol Hill that the administration of President Barack Obama may shift more money to combat Zika within the next day or two.
Kids returning to school in a Miami neighbourhood linked to Zika infections will be allowed to wear trousers and long-sleeved shirts that don’t match their school uniforms, but still can’t bring mosquito repellent to campus. Fifteen babies have been born with Zika-related birth defects.
“We were hoping, continually hoping, that the Congress was going to appropriate the money for us”, he said at a media briefing hosted by the Alliance for Health Reform. Now, she said, “our nation’s ability to mount the type of Zika response that the American people deserve sits squarely with Congress”.
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“Weeks ago the House of Representatives passed a $1.1 billion bill to fight the spread of Zika and control the mosquito population, and Senate Democrats have since filibustered this lifesaving bill”, said AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. Democrats in the administration and Congress have shown over and over again that they’d rather mischaracterize history to demonize Republicans instead of swiftly address a public health crisis.
