Gov. Rick Scott will make the journey to Washington, D.C. next week to demand much-needed funding to combat the Zika virus in Florida.
On Friday, the governor’s office announced he would be heading to the nation’s capital city Sept. 13-14 to finally make an in-person push to pass a Zika funding package.
Scott was initially scheduled to visit Washington, D.C. earlier this week, but ended up rescheduling so he could help with Hurricane Hermine recovery efforts in Tallahassee.
The governor’s visit comes on the heels of a failed $1.1 billion proposal in the U.S. Senate to fund Zika prevention and preparedness. National lawmakers have been unable to agree on a package for months, engaging in a fierce back-and-forth with no resolution in sight.
The bill needed 60 votes to pass in the Senate, but Democrats were hesitant to greenlight the bill since it had restrictions for Planned Parenthood wrapped into the package.
Time is not on lawmakers' sides. Last week, Centers for Disease Control director Tom Frieden said the agency is nearly out of the $222 million allocated to help fight the virus.
With the money quickly running out, national legislators will need to act quickly to create a funding package for the Zika virus as soon as possible, since they’ll be heading to another recess in under a month.
Over the summer, lawmakers left Washington without a Zika funding package -- and the situation in Florida quickly became worse. In July, local transmissions of the virus began occurring in Miami. There are over 600 travel-related cases in Florida and 56 locally-transmitted cases.
Over 80 of those cases involve pregnant women, who are most endangered by the virus. Zika doesn’t produce significant symptoms in the infected, but can pose serious issues for fetuses. Fetuses born with Zika virus can have birth defects and the virus can cause microcephaly, a birth defect where the baby’s head is an abnormally small size.
The Centers for Disease Control also warned the virus has been linked to adverse outcomes including pregnancy loss, and eye defects, hearing loss, and impaired growth in infants.
Since returning to Congress, lawmakers from Florida have continued to push their fellow congressmen to create a solution for the problem ravaging their home state. U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros Lehtinen and David Jolly have been critical over the lack of agreement over the funding package.
The calls came from both sides of the aisle, though -- and Democrats also agree something must be done.
"Let's do what the Senate did three months ago when it passed – bipartisan by 69 votes – $ 1.1 billion in emergency funding, and send it down to the House and tell the House to stop playing these games,” said Florida’s Democratic senator Bill Nelson.
Gov. Scott has already allocated $26 million in state funding to prevent and combat the Zika virus, particularly in the Miami area, but Scott and other lawmakers hope a sincere federal effort can help drastically reduce or eliminate the virus entirely.
Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.
