The White House on Friday struck down a proposal from House Republicans to use leftover money allocated for Ebola-related projects to fund anti-Zika virus initiatives. The proposal follows President Obama's request for Congress to shell out over $1.8 billion to fight Zika virus in the United States and overseas.
Three Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives suggested that the government should plow $2.7 billion that have not been utilized for health programs overseas, Reuters reported.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers said that the $2.7 billion can be taken from the $5.3 billion fund that was set aside to respond to the Ebola outbreak that exploded in West Africa from December 2013 to 2015.
For the proposal, Rogers is joined by Health and Human Services and State Department appropriators Kay Granger and Tom Cole, respectively.
"These funds can and should be prioritized to meet the most pressing needs of mounting a rapid and full response to Zika," Rogers said, via The Washington Times.
"If the aim of the request is to mount as rapid a response as possible, it is clear to us that the most expeditious way to identify the needed funding is to maximize the use of unobligated funds previously provided for Ebola," the appropriators added.
Rogers also assured that if additional funds are needed to refill the Ebola reserve in the future, the Congress is ready to make the necessary appropriations for the 2017 fiscal year.
The White House, however, does not find the proposal agreeable and have moved to decline it.
"It's critically important that we follow through on those efforts and it would be profoundly unwise to take money away from the ongoing effort that's need to fight Ebola," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Earnest emphasized that the purpose of the Ebola money was to "build up the public health infrastructure of countries overseas" to prevent future outbreaks.
According to The Hill, the White House is likely to submit a formal request to fund anti-Zika projects. While it may request to have a portion of the Ebola funds repurposed for anti-ZIka virus efforts, the amount will not be large enough to undermine Ebola responses. The main aim of White House's request is to open up a completely separate funding pool for anti-Zika responses and the development of a vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 50 case of Zika virus among U.S. travelers from December 2015 to February 2016. The World Health Organization has declared Zika a "global health emergency," and has predicted that the virus could infect as many as 4 million people in the Americas in 2016.
