The House moved toward a night vote on a USD 622 million GOP measure to combat the Zika virus, despite a White House veto threat and a warning from the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention that it wouldn't do enough to respond to the swelling threat to public health.
"It's just not enough," CDC Director Tom Frieden said of the House measure. "It doesn't give Americans the protections they deserve, and with every day of delay it gets harder to do this." The House bill provides USD 120 million to the CDC for fighting Zika, far below the administration's USD 743 million request.
President Barack Obama requested USD 1.9 billion three months ago for overall efforts to fight Zika, which is spread by mosquitoes and sexual contact and can cause severe birth defects.
The House bill provides one-third of the request and limits the use of the money to the current budget year, which ends September 30. It cuts funds provided in 2014 to fight Ebola to help offset the cost of the additional Zika money.
Frieden said in an interview with The Associated Press that the House measure would hamper the CDC's ability to monitor women and babies with the virus over several years, fight the mosquitoes that spread it, and develop better diagnostic tests.
"This is an unprecedented situation," Frieden said. "We've never had a situation before where a single mosquito bite could result in you giving birth to a child with a terrible birth defect that could change the rest of your life."
When Congress didn't act on Obama's request, he devoted almost USD 600 million in previous appropriations, mostly leftover funding from the recent and successful effort to fight Ebola, to combat Zika.
Republicans pressed for the funding shift as a first step to battle Zika and they say the pending measure will carry the battle at least through the September 30 end of the current budget year.
"Everything that has needed to be done has been done," said Republican Tom Cole, R-Okla.
On Tuesday, the Senate advanced a USD 1.1 billion measure to fight Zika that earned sweeping support from Democrats even though it's less than the White House request. It is soon to be added to an unrelated spending bill, which adds a procedural wrinkle since the House bill will advance as a separate stand-alone measure.
The White House has issued a veto threat on the House measure, saying it is woefully inadequate and would only fund the Zika battle through September.
