WASHINGTON — Government scientists have identified the most promising Zika vaccine and have started human trials, but a congressional impasse is forcing them to borrow money intended for crucial work on cancer, diabetes, Ebola and other deadly diseases.
In a speech attended by other top Zika experts Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, trod a thin line between describing progress in the Zika fight and pleading for emergency funding held up for months in Congress.
“We are right now in a race against time to get the best vaccine,” Fauci said.
Scientists at the Vaccine Research Center of Fauci’s institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, are enrolling 80 healthy volunteers 18 to 35 years old for the first phase of the trial, with initial results expected by January.
The first person was injected Aug. 3 with the vaccine, which uses a piece of DNA called a plasmid that is engineered to produce Zika proteins that prompt the body to launch an immune response. The vaccine cannot cause someone to become infected with Zika.
Fauci criticized Republican lawmakers who have blocked the $1.9 billion emergency funding package President Barack Obama requested from Congress in February, saying their demand that the NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention transfer money appropriated for other illnesses to the Zika battle hurts efforts against other diseases.
“All of that is extremely damaging to the biomedical enterprise,” Fauci said. “We’re taking money away from cancer, diabetes — all those kinds of things.”
Almost two-thirds of Americans are concerned about the virus spreading across greater swaths of the country in the coming months, according to poll results released Thursday by Suffolk University in Boston.
