vector control

Just before the end of its September session, Congress finally did what public health officials had been begging it to do for more than seven months and approved substantial funding for Zika response efforts. The $1.1 billion package fell short of the $1.9 billion President Obama requested back in February – and, according the tally from POLITICO’s Dan Diamond, it came 233 days after Obama’s request and after 23,135 cases of Zika virus were identified in US states and territories. Unlike an earlier House bill, this funding measure doesn’t prohibit funding from going to Planned Parenthood –…