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The Obama administration on Thursday said it was shifting $81 million away from biomedical research and antipoverty and health care programs to pay for the development of a Zika vaccine, resorting to extraordinary measures because Congress has failed to approve new funding to combat the virus. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, told members of Congress in a letter that without the diverted funds, the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority would run out of money to confront the mosquito-borne illness by the end of the month. (Davis, 8/11)

The money will supplement the $347 million HHS transferred away from an existing fund to fight the Ebola virus. The administration is seeking $1.9 billion to fight Zika, but Congress is deadlocked over the funding. “The failure to pass a Zika emergency supplemental has forced the Administration to choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to temporarily avoid these delays,” Burwell wrote. (Snell and Dennis, 8/11)

Secretary Burwell, in her letter, said the administration now has to “choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to temporarily avoid” delays in vaccine research on Zika. She estimated that, even with the $34 million, NIH will need another $196 million in fiscal 2017 for vaccine and other research related to Zika. (Burton and McWhirter, 8/11)

NIAID Director Tony Fauci said at the National Press Club that funding Zika this way is not wise. "All of that is extremely damaging to the biomedical enterprise," he said. "We're taking money away from cancer, diabetes, all of those kinds of things." The new Zika funding is coming from other NIH accounts, as well as the Administration for Children and Families, CMS and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Burwell said that these moves will “exhaust” the ability to provide short-term financing help for ZIka and that more funding will be needed. (Haberkorn, 8/11)

Top Democrats on Thursday said congressional inaction on Zika funding is forcing the Obama administration to take money from vital biomedical research. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not disclose how much money would be transferred to fight the Zika virus, but said an announcement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is forthcoming. (Lillis, 8/11)

HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said Thursday she will divert federal funds to support efforts to develop a Zika vaccine.In a letter sent to congressional leaders, Burwell said some $34 million that was previously committed toward researching other illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and cancer would be re-allocated. An additional $47 million from other agencies will go to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA. (Muchmore and Johnson, 8/11)

Hammering GOP leaders for tying funding for the Zika virus to restrictions on Planned Parenthood clinics, Pelosi on Thursday wondered aloud how many Republicans abstain from using contraception. "Zika … can be sexually transmitted. … And yet, they're saying, 'Well, if we have any funding for Zika it cannot include contraception,' " Pelosi said at a press briefing in the Capitol. (Lillis, 8/11)

Perhaps no one is more frustrated with Congress’s inaction on emergency Zika funding than Cindy Pellegrini. Pellegrini oversees lobbying at the March of Dimes, the nonprofit working to improve maternal and infant health. Since March, Pellegrini has been leading the charge on Capitol Hill to pass legislation funding research, vaccine development and other measures to combat the Zika virus, which causes severe brain defects in babies whose mothers are infected while pregnant. But her efforts have hit a wall. (Ho, 8/11)

Two new reports call into question advice about how long men who have been infected with the Zika virus should wait before trying to father a child. On Thursday, scientists described two cases in which the semen of men who contracted Zika in Haiti early this year continued to test positive for the virus, even though it has been six months since they were infected. (Branswell, 8/11)

Now, as the pace of new cases has slowed, Brazil is entering a new phase of the epidemic, in which families and doctors are discovering the long-term medical complications Duda and the 1,748 other infants like her nationwide will confront.Doctors have coined a new name for their disease, “congenital Zika syndrome” — a sign of how much they have to learn. Besides microcephaly, experts say some of the affected children have joint malformation or brain malformation, though their heads are normal-sized. So much is unknown: How will these babies grow? Will they ever be able to talk or walk? How long will they live? (Bailey, 8/12)

Three more local cases of Zika were identified on Thursday, in the same small area of the Miami-Dade County, bringing up the total of such cases to 25, according to the Florida Department of Health. There were also 21 new travel-related cases of Zika identified on Thursday, 17 of which were in Broward County. (Miller, 8/11)

Scientists at the University of Southern California discovered a key weapon used by the Zika virus to ravage the brains of infected fetuses: proteins. In an article published Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, researchers identified two proteins in Zika potentially responsible for causing microcephaly. ... The proteins — called NS4A and NS4B — affect the brain by targeting a critical signaling pathway that controls cell growth and breaks down damaged cells and their elements. Initially, Zika slows cell development and reduces the variety of cells in the brain. Over time, this “rigged” system enables the virus to thrive and spread while healthy cells die. (Heredia Rodriguez, 8/11)