US shifts $81M to fund research for Zika vaccine

CHICAGO — The U.S. government has shifted $34 million in funding to the National Institutes of Health and $47 million to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to work on Zika vaccines.

The announcement was made in a letter from Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell addressed to Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Burwell said the funding was intended to keep Zika vaccine research going despite the lack of funding from U.S. lawmakers, who left for summer recess before allocating any funding to Zika research and preparedness.