Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) — President Obama spent Friday morning receiving the latest update on the spread of the Zika virus from the nation’s top health officials, and issued a warning to Congress to pass funding to combat Zika that has been stalled for months.
“It is absolutely critical for the United States government, working in concert with other governments in the hemisphere, to be pushing hard right now to get this situation under control,” Obama said. “We can issue precautions for travel to areas that have Zika, we can give people guidelines in terms of how to deal with it if they get infected, but this is actually something that we could reduce the risks if Congress does the right thing and allocates the dollars that are needed right now to get the job done.”
The president said the virus’ spread through Puerto Rico and Latin America is reason for “alarm,” but he was told by National Institutes of Health director Dr. Anthony Fauci at the briefing that they are “fairly confident” an effective vaccine to combat Zika is within reach.
However, the administration’s $1.9 billion funding request intended to help develop a vaccine is at a standstill.
“We have not seen the House and the Senate come together in a sensible way to put forward the dollars requested that have been budgeted to get the job done,” Obama said. “So what I want the American people to understand is that I expect Congress to get this funding done before they leave for vacation, before they adjourn. That’s part of their basic responsibility.”
Obama then hit Republicans for attempting to pin ideological riders on funding bills, saying “this is not the time to play politics.”
“When there are emergencies, when there are public health emergencies, when we know that we have the chance to prevent serious tragedies in the lives of families and to help protect the safety of our populations and particularly our children then those politics need to be set aside,” he said.
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
