Congress left town for the summer on Thursday without approving new funding for Zika, a move that could push back a vital trial to develop a vaccine for the virus.
Lawmakers adjourned for seven weeks without voting on a $1.1 billion funding package to fight the Zika virus due to Senate Democratic objections to several provisions added to the bill. Lawmakers will not return until Sept. 6.
When they return, they will have a small window in which to approve the funding to ensure that a major clinical trial for a vaccine goes forward as planned, a top official with the National Institutes of Health said.
No vaccine exists for the Zika virus, which causes a birth defect called microcephaly and may cause a neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
NIH plans to start a small clinical trial of 80 people in August or September to test the effectiveness of vaccine candidates. The trial will move forward as planned and should be finished by the end of the year, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a part of NIH.
After the trial is complete, Fauci wants to immediately start a larger one around January 2017.
But that second trial is in danger of not starting on time due to money.
Even though the trial would not start until January, NIH needs to start preparing for it a few months beforehand. Officials need to prepare sites where the trial will be held.
“Those sites will be in South American countries like Brazil and the Caribbean nations,” Fauci told the Washington Examiner. “That takes time and money.”
For the trial to start on time, Fauci said he has to start preparing for it in September, the same month that Congress returns.
The administration provided about $560 million in funding a few months ago, a majority of which was taken from a fund fighting the Ebola outbreak. Fauci said he would run out of appropriated funds for Zika in September.
“If we don’t come through with the appropriations we are going to have to dramatically slow down the beginning of phase II,” he said.
House and Senate Republicans have complained that the Obama administration has doled out only about $100 million of the $560 million. House appropriators wrote to Obama on Thursday urging him to “use available funding now.”
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the figures are misleading and much of the money will be moved out soon as the federal process for using the funds takes time.
“Without congressional action, HHS was forced in April to repurpose money earmarked for the ongoing fight against Ebola,” said CDC spokeswoman Erin Sykes. “We have gone through the standard process for awarding that money, and much of it will move in July and August.”
Fauci said if Congress approves money in September, then he can find a way to start the trial on time. However, if the funding fight stretches into October or November, the phase II trial would have to be delayed.
The trial needs to start on time, as January is the start of mosquito season in South American and Caribbean countries where Zika is spreading, he said. The virus spreads primarily via mosquito bites.
“We usually see epidemics die down and you don’t get opportunity to prove whether the vaccine works or not,” Fauci said. “The active mosquito season is our winter [and] their summer.”
It is not clear when Congress could approve the Zika funding or if President Obama would sign it. The $1.1 billion is below the $1.9 billion Obama requested in February.
The package passed the House but stalled in the Senate over objections from Democrats upset at a rider added that would strip funding for Planned Parenthood in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory where the virus is spreading, and one that would allow the Confederate flag to be flown at veterans cemeteries.
About 1,300 Zika cases have been found in the U.S. Almost all are people who recently traveled to an area where the virus is spreading.
So far, mosquitoes in the U.S. are not spreading the virus, but officials warn that could change this summer and there may be limited outbreaks.
