Sen. Bob Menendez has personal stake in push for Zika funding

But the institute’s Zika money runs out at the end of the month, said NIAID director Anthony Fauci.

“It is a step in the right direction but terribly inadequate”, Poland said. Fauci said in a press briefing in Washington that he needs $33 million to prepare to move the potential vaccine to the second phase of trials, Reuters reported.

The DNA-based vaccine contains genetic pieces of the Zika virus. Southern states with a higher risk of Zika were no more likely to be anxious about the virus than the rest of the country, with the exception of Florida and Texas, which were slightly more concerned.

President Obama asked Congress for $1.9 billion to fight Zika in February, but Congress has not been able to agree on a funding package. Scientists have worked to expedite the vaccine research, given concerns about Zika’s link to catastrophic birth defects in infants, Fauci said.

The Obama administration said Thursday that it will transfer $81 million from existing federal health programs so there’s enough money to continue trials of a Zika vaccine.

“I don’t want any inference to be drawn that this money is not necessary where it is, in the fight against Ebola, [for] medical research [and] all of the other purposes of the Department of Health and Human Services”, she said.

As health officials had been warning for months, Zika started spreading in the United States this summer.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans are concerned about the virus spreading across greater swaths of the country in the coming months, according to poll results released Thursday by Suffolk University in Boston.

For CDC, that could mean cutting the number of staff trying to halt the virus in Puerto Rico, Florida and elsewhere.

“Florida has a semitropical climate”, he said.

The state also reported 21 new travel-related infections, with 17 in Broward County, two in Hernando County and one in Miami-Dade and Seminole counties. “This has been the case all along, and it is disappointing that it has taken this long for this action to occur”.

Her response echoes that of many Congressional Democrats, who are frustrated the House left for vacation without passing viable legislation to fund Zika efforts. To date, at least 25 people have been infected by local mosquitoes in South Florida, most in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami.

On Tuesday, Texas health officials said a baby died from Zika after contracting it in the womb after its mother’s trip to Latin America.

“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 have rejected a $1.1 billion GOP-written alternative over politically motivated language, including provisions that would deny Zika-related funds from being sent to Planned Parenthood and loosen environmental regulations on pesticides.

Rubio criticized fellow Republicans for months and more recently directed his ire at the Obama administration for refusing to reallocate previously appropriated money to the Zika fight. Florida is grappling with at least 21 cases of locally transmitted Zika, and the Obama administration has already reprogrammed almost $600 million U.S. to fight the virus.