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The White House will shift about $500 million designated for fighting Ebola to combating the Zika virus, saying the step is necessary because Congress hasn’t acted on the administration’s request for emergency funding to tackle the mosquito-borne disease. The $510 million in existing Ebola funding, plus almost $80 million from other sources, will be redirected to allow for an immediate Zika response, Shaun Donovan, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Wednesday. (Armour, 4/6)

In an effort to break the two-month deadlock over funding to fight the encroaching Zika virus, Obama administration officials announced on Wednesday that, as congressional Republicans had demanded, they would transfer $510 million originally intended to protect against Ebola to the Zika battle. Officials from the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the State Department said they would move a total of $589 million to efforts to contain Zika. In addition to funds moved from the Ebola budget, an additional $79 million would come from several other accounts, including money previously allotted to the national strategic stockpile of vaccines and other emergency supplies for epidemics, said Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. (McNeil, 4/6)

The redirected funds will go to mosquito control and surveillance; education about how to prevent transmission; supporting states and territories in their own Zika virus responses; and developing vaccines and better diagnostic tests. (Bichell, 4/6)

While the administration has acknowledged that substantial Ebola funding is left over, it has already committed much of it to helping at least 30 other countries prevent, detect and respond to future outbreaks and epidemics. It also wants to preserve money to keep fighting Ebola should it flare up again. (4/6)

The White House announced Wednesday it will shift $589 million in government spending to combat the Zika virus, and warned Congress that it would regret ignoring the Obama administration’s request for $1.9 billion to increase research and defenses against the disease. (Sink, 4/6)

Top Zika investigators now believe that the birth defect microcephaly and the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome may be just the most obvious maladies caused by the mosquito-borne virus. Fueling that suspicion are recent discoveries of serious brain and spinal cord infections - including encephalitis, meningitis and myelitis - in people exposed to Zika. (Steenhuysen, 4/6)