Florida is taking a beating right now — and it’s not pretty. Gov. Rick Scott has ordered mandatory evacuations in parts of the state with Hurricane Hermine making landfall. Rainfall is expected to be anywhere from 5 to 10 inches over much of northwest Florida and southern Georgia through Friday.
The massive storm comes as local transmission of the Zika virus is on the rise. This is devastating — standing water is a primary breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry the virus, while the funding to fight them has reportedly all but dried up.
“Our state has several requests the Obama administration has repeatedly failed to fulfill,” said Gov. Scott.
With Congress set to reconvene next week on Sept. 6, Democrats and Republicans will have to break their summer stalemate on Zika funding. Congress left for its summer vacation without providing any money for the fight against the virus. As a result, all three of the major government agencies involved in research and prevention will soon run out of funds.
The National Institutes of Health exhausted its $47 million in funding last month, which could delay the clinical trial for a DNA-based vaccine. BARDA, the government component that works with private sector research, ran out of its $85 million as well, stagnating the search for better diagnostic tools.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been surprisingly unresponsive to Florida’s request for help — possibly because it, too, will run out of funding by the end of September.
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida requested the CDC provide the state with 5,000 antibody tests, additional lab personnel, and 10,000 Zika prevention kits. The CDC initially provided only 1,200 antibody tests, although it did send other tests later. Sarah Revell, a media and marketing manager at the Florida Department of Health, told LifeZette the state needed the prevention kits — which contain insect repellant, condoms, and mosquito nets — for pregnant women.
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“Pregnant women are most at risk for Zika virus because it can lead to severe birth defects like microcephaly,” Revell said. And Zika-related microcephaly is almost always serious, requiring lifelong intensive care. The more children born with microcephaly — the higher health care costs in coming decades.
An aide in the governor’s office confirmed that the CDC has yet to send them the personnel or the kits they require. Nor have they received a plan from the Obama administration on how to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The virus spread from the first case at the end of July to 35 locally transmitted cases at the end of August.
Gov. Scott expressed repeated frustrations with the lack of responsiveness. He is traveling to Washington, D.C., to meet with members of Congress to ensure they reach an agreement. “The health and safety of Florida’s families cannot be overshadowed by partisan politics,” he said in a statement. “Our state has several requests that the Obama administration has repeatedly failed to fulfill, and I expect the president to work with his federal agencies and Congress to fully fulfill these requests quickly.”
The crisis is escalating quickly, funding or not. The virus spread from the first case at the end of July to 35 locally transmitted cases at the end of August. There are also 2,686 cases related to travel. Fifteen babies have been born with birth defects related to the virus; one newborn’s death in Houston last month was tied to Zika.
Related: Looming Zika Infant Epidemic
The Food and Drug Administration also issued a statement earlier this week recommending that facilities test all blood donations for Zika virus to prevent any additional transmissions. Only 11 states have been required to implement this testing immediately, but facilities in all states will be required to test for the virus within the next 12 weeks.
However, it remains a mystery as to how hospitals and other facilities will absorb the costs of this extra testing. The FDA has not provided additional funding to back this new requirement. It’s possible the costs will fall to the most vulnerable population — the patients.
Government agencies have been forced to play a deadly virus version of whack-a-mole. During the Ebola outbreak of 2015, Congress approved $5.4 billion in emergency funding for Ebola. About $2 billion of those funds remain, and a fair chunk of that money has been reallocated to Zika. But rerouting that money could prevent Ebola-ravaged countries from developing the infrastructure they need to prevent future outbreaks.
Related: Democrats’ Dishonest Effort to Pin Zika on GOP
The Obama administration initially requested $1.9 billion in emergency funding, and Republicans in the House complied by passing a $1.1 billion package that was then filibustered by Senate Democrats. It seems Congress could not agree on the details of the bill, thus halting Zika funding altogether.
A new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation, however, shows 75 percent of Americans want Congress to allocate more money to the Zika fight. And with both Republicans and Democrats vying for the swing votes in Florida, it’s possible they could reach an agreement within the coming weeks. For those families and individuals affected, the money can’t come soon enough.
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