U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said the Obama administration
may announce as early as Thursday that it is shifting more money into fighting
the Zika virus.

“Maybe today or tomorrow,” Pelosi told reporters in a
hallway on Thursday. She did not give an amount, but said, “I think they
are going to try to do it a piece at a time, hoping that something else will
happen,” an apparent reference to the administration’s request that the
Republican-led Congress approve a funding bill to combat the virus.

The Obama administration in February requested $1.9 billion to
fight the virus, which was first detected in Brazil last year and has spread
rapidly in the Americas. Before going home on summer recess, lawmakers were
discussing a $1.1 billion measure, but the bill stalled amid partisan
bickering.

House Democrats at a news conference urged the Republicans to
reconvene Congress to address the virus. Florida is grappling with at least 21
cases of locally transmitted Zika, and the Obama administration has already
reprogrammed nearly $600 million to fight the virus.

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will spend
all of its remaining funds by the end of September, while two other agencies
will exhaust their resources for Zika by the end of August, Representative Rosa
DeLauro said.

Money will have to be shifted from biomedical research to fight
Zika, DeLauro said. “If they don’t, vaccine development will be stopped
dead in its tracks,” she said.