Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives only wants to fund Zika control if it can take away funding from the emergency Ebola response.
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives only wants to fund Zika control if it can take away funding from the emergency Ebola response. Tommyphongphan/Shutterstock

They now have to wait three weeks to find out whether the virus has impacted their pregnancies, KOMO reported on Friday.

Four people in Washington State have now tested positive for Zika. Nearly 300 pregnant women in the United States and Puerto Rico have also tested positive for the mosquito-borne and sexually transmitted virus, and the Centers for Disease Control are tracking these pregnancies to see if the virus results in miscarriage or birth defects. Keep in mind much of the United States is just entering mosquito season, and many experts believe it's only a matter of time until Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquitoes—insects that are plentiful across wide swaths of the American South—start transmitting the virus locally in the continental US.

Both houses of Congress are planning a Memorial Day break this weekend, but President Obama told them that they should not do so until they come up with a plan for funding Zika prevention, treatment, and research. The Senate approved a $1.1 billion Zika deal—which still significantly less than the $1.9 billion the Obama administration asked for—but the House of Representatives only wants to cough up $622 million to fight Zika. That's not all: In order to pay for Zika, the House of Representatives wants to cut funding from the United States' emergency Ebola response.

Ron Klain, the Obama administration's former "Ebola czar," has called the House's funding ultimatum "irresponsible and inexcusable."

"The babies being born are neither Democrats or Republicans," Klain told POLITICO. "They're babies."