"This reckless culture of obstruction has seemed until now to have taken over in this Congress," Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra said at a press conference. "The result of course is that we’re not getting much done and it appears to most people that congress is asleep at the wheel."
On Monday, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that $1.2 billion had been made available to fight the spread of Zika by redirecting funds previously budgeted to deal with an Ebola epidemic in Africa that has largely run its course.
Representative Kathy Castor of the US state of Florida, where the mosquito-borne virus is rapidly spreading, said she fears that global health authorities will soon warn pregnant women and their partners to avoid travel to Florida as they have with Brazil.
"It is entirely irresponsible for the GOP [Republican Party] to say here we’re going to pass a half measure," Castor stated. "Meanwhile the number of [Zika] cases continues to increase, the public health threat increases, more of my neighbors are at risk."
Researchers are racing to develop vaccines to prevent Zika infections, tests to detect exposure to the virus and methods to reduce populations of mosquitoes that spread the disease.
The Zika virus has been blamed for an epidemic in Brazil of birth defects characterized by abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.
