White House transfers $81M to continue Zika vaccine research

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.

Money for the Zika vaccine research was to run out at the end of the month, USA Today reported.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said she will transfer $34 million from her agency to the National Institutes of Health and will transfer another $47 million to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the newspaper reported.

President Barack Obama had asked Congress back in February for $1.9 billion to help fight Zika but lawmakers haven't been able to agree on a spending plan.

The United States is experiencing its first-ever outbreak of Zika, in a one-square-mile Miami neighborhood called Wynwood. Florida health officials say there have been at least 21 local Zika infections.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging pregnant women and their partners to stay away from Wynwood -- the first time the CDC has ever warned against travel to an American neighborhood for fear of an infectious disease.

Most Zika infections have occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean. Brazil has reported the vast majority of cases and the birth defect microcephaly.

U.S. officials said they don't expect to see a Zika epidemic in the United States similar to those in Latin America. The reason: better insect control as well as window screens and air conditioning that should help curtail any outbreaks.

So far, the more than 1,800 Zika infections so far reported in the United States mainly have been linked to travel to countries with Zika outbreaks in Latin America or the Caribbean.

In addition to mosquitoes, the Zika virus can be transmitted through sex. These infections in the United States are thought to have occurred because the patients' partners had traveled to countries where Zika is circulating, the CDC said.

The CDC advises pregnant women not to travel to an area where active Zika transmission is ongoing, and to use insect repellent and wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts if they are in those areas. Partners of pregnant women are advised to use a condom to guard against sexual transmission during pregnancy.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter