Â鶹ŮÓÅ

Debate over how a divided Congress should respond to the Zika virus moved from Washington to the campaign trail in the first half of the summer recess, ranging from the presidential campaign to House contests. While it's not clear yet that fear of the mosquito-borne virus will prove to be a major issue that moves votes, Zika certainly has emerged as a flash point in Florida, the ground zero for infections in the continental U.S. (Shutt, 8/15)

Democratic U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen called on Congress today to provide money for research on the Zika virus. She spoke to state and town officials in Salem, where mosquitos with both West Nile and EEE have been successfully controlled in years past. (Corwin, 8/15)

Health officials say a Texas resident who recently traveled to an area of Miami where local Zika transmission occurred has tested positive for the virus. The Texas Department of State Health Services said Monday that it’s the first Texas case to be linked to travel within the continental U.S. Health officials linked the case to Miami travel after investigating factors such as travel dates and when symptoms appeared. (8/15)

Zika's now spreading from state to state in the U.S.. Health officials in Texas said Monday a resident there caught Zika in Florida and brought it home. It doesn't mean Zika's an epidemic just yet, but it does show just how easily the virus can spread once enough people in an area are infected. "This is the first Texas case to be linked to travel within the continental United States. The case will be classified as 'travel-associated' and is being investigated for more details," the Texas health department said in a statement. (Fox, 8/15)

Texas Health and Human Services had announced recently that women on Medicaid could see their physician and get a prescription for two free cans of mosquito repellent monthly at their pharmacy. Today, the process has been streamlined. Now pregnant women of any age and all women between 10 and 45 on Medicaid can go directly to the pharmacy to pick up the spray. No doctor’s visit is required. (Rigby, 8/15)

Anthony Fauci has spent his career hunting ways to treat and prevent infectious diseases, from tuberculosis to severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. He did pioneering work on deciphering how HIV/AIDS attacks the human immune system, and during more than three decades as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has continued the quest to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the world. In recent years, Fauci and other researchers at NIH, working alongside the pharmaceutical industry, also have found themselves scrambling to develop vaccines and treatments for emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. (Dennis, 8/15)