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HHS to transfer $81 million for Zika
In a letter to congressional leaders today, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell said because lawmakers have not approved a funding request to support the Zika outbreak response, she has shifted $81 million more in existing funds to keep vaccine development going until the end of the fiscal year. She said $34 million is for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and $47 million is for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
In the letter, posted on Democrat House leadership's Web site, Burwell said the NIH and BARDA have said their Zika funds would be exhausted by the end of the month, and without more financial support they would be forced to delay critical vaccine development activities.
She said the NIH money was coming from other NIH accounts, which hurts efforts to support the work of the nation's leading scientists, "But the lack of a clean, bipartisan Zika funding bill has left me no choice but to move forward with this action at this time."
The funding transfer for NIH will cover the design of a phase 2 trial for a DNA-based vaccine that recently entered a phase 1 trial.
Even with the extra $34 million in funding, the NIH estimates it will need $196 million through the end of the 2017 fiscal year to continue with vaccine and diagnostic test development and other research on Zika. Burwell said currently there is no funding to support three other vaccine candidates that the NIH has identified.
Burwell added that the shift in funds to BARDA is coming from the Administration for Children and Families, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The new shift in funding exhausts short-term options for battling Zika, she said, warning that when Congress returns to Washington in September, it will have less than 1 month to provide resources to keep key frontline efforts going, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) work in Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and other areas working to curb the spread of the virus. Burwell also said lack of a funding package would stall the work of BARDA and its corporate partners.
"In short, allowing any of these scenarios to come to pass puts the American people needlessly at risk and will result in more Zika infections and potentially more babies being born with microcephaly and other birth defects," Burwell wrote.
HHS to transfer $81 million for Zika
In a letter to congressional leaders today, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell said because lawmakers have not approved a funding request to support the Zika outbreak response, she has shifted $81 million more in existing funds to keep vaccine development going until the end of the fiscal year. She said $34 million is for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and $47 million is for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
In the letter, posted on Democrat House leadership's Web site, Burwell said the NIH and BARDA have said their Zika funds would be exhausted by the end of the month, and without more financial support they would be forced to delay critical vaccine development activities.
She said the NIH money was coming from other NIH accounts, which hurts efforts to support the work of the nation's leading scientists, "But the lack of a clean, bipartisan Zika funding bill has left me no choice but to move forward with this action at this time."
The funding transfer for NIH will cover the design of a phase 2 trial for a DNA-based vaccine that recently entered a phase 1 trial.
Even with the extra $34 million in funding, the NIH estimates it will need $196 million through the end of the 2017 fiscal year to continue with vaccine and diagnostic test development and other research on Zika. Burwell said currently there is no funding to support three other vaccine candidates that the NIH has identified.
Burwell added that the shift in funds to BARDA is coming from the Administration for Children and Families, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The new shift in funding exhausts short-term options for battling Zika, she said, warning that when Congress returns to Washington in September, it will have less than 1 month to provide resources to keep key frontline efforts going, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) work in Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and other areas working to curb the spread of the virus. Burwell also said lack of a funding package would stall the work of BARDA and its corporate partners.
"In short, allowing any of these scenarios to come to pass puts the American people needlessly at risk and will result in more Zika infections and potentially more babies being born with microcephaly and other birth defects," Burwell wrote.