Halfway through a hearing on Capitol Hill, as public health officials warned of dire consequences should Congress fail to pass funding to help combat the Zika virus, Tim Kaine uttered the words everyone in the room was probably thinking.



“This is why people hate Congress,” said the senator from Virginia, who is thought to be a potential vice-presidential pick for Hillary Clinton. “This is why people hate Washington.”

A handful of his colleagues from both parties acknowledged one simple truth: lawmakers should appropriate funds to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and they should do so urgently.

Marco Rubio, chair of the subcommittee in question and a former Republican presidential candidate, discussed the situation in his home state of Florida, where more than 300 Zika cases have been reported.

“The growing threat of the Zika virus as a full-blown public health crisis in the United States is a clear call to action,” Rubio said. “It’s taken far too long already.”

The California Democrat Barbara Boxer, the committee’s ranking member, said: “We need to act and we need to act now. This crisis is only getting worse, and many more lives could be changed forever without a proper response.”

The following day, Congress skipped town for a seven-week recess. The federal government was left without resources to fund emergency preparations for Zika, which include critical vaccine development, mosquito control efforts and other research related to containment and prevention.

“This is no way to fight epidemics,” CDC director Tom Frieden lamented at the Senate hearing.

It has become an all-too-familiar routine: political wrangling over must-pass legislation, at the expense of the public.

On Thursday, a Republican-sponsored bill that would have allocated $1.1bn in Zika funding fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate, amid objections from Democrats, who decried the inclusion of several contentious riders.

Just two months previously, the Senate had overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan compromise that appropriated $1.1bn without any significant caveats. Barack Obama was prepared to sign it, despite having requested $1.9bn in February.

The fact that the funding hasn’t flowed is inexplicable to people, on an issue like this of a public health nature Marco Rubio

House Republicans, however, attached provisions to the bill that imposed restrictions on abortion, overturned clean water regulations, defunded parts of the president’s healthcare law, and sought to undo a ban on flying the Confederate flag at federal cemeteries.

“These are poison pills,” said Bill Nelson, a Democratic senator from Florida who, with Rubio, cosponsored ill-fated legislation to meet the Obama administration’s full funding request.

“It’s a political message, and that’s what’s wrong with this institution.”

Patty Murray, the third-ranking Senate Democrat, said she and other leaders in her party attempted to revive negotiations before Congress adjourned.

“The Republicans have said no, no, no and no,” she told the Guardian. “It’s really frustrating. They’re playing politics with women’s health.”

Republican leaders, however, said the House-passed bill could not be amended, since it was passed under a procedure known as a conference report.

“I’d love it if the Senate just passed bills and they became law, but it doesn’t work that way,” the Texas senator John Cornyn, the Senate Republican whip, told the Guardian. “The House gets a vote too.”

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, blasted Democrats for blocking the Senate bill.

“It’s time for our friends to start worrying less about pleasing outside political groups and start worrying more about actually helping the Americans who are counting on us,” he said.

The failure to resolve the impasse left the matter of Zika funding in limbo until the chamber reconvenes on 6 September. Until then, the mosquito-borne virus will continue to spread while public health officials engage in what the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, once called “the bureaucratic equivalent of digging through the sofa cushions” for change.

‘Officials are very concerned because they see what’s coming’

Nearly 1,200 Zika cases have been confirmed in the continental US, most arising from travel to affected areas such as Puerto Rico and Brazil. More than a million people have been infected in Central and South America. According to the CDC, the virus is striking up to 50 pregnant women each day in Puerto Rico.

For expectant mothers, the risk is the most grave. Zika can cause birth defects, most notably microcephaly, a condition in which children are born with abnormally small heads. The CDC estimates that the lifetime cost of care for a microcephalic child can range from $1m to $10m.

Zika has also been linked with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause permanent nerve damage and, in some cases, paralysis.

The virus, which is transmitted either by mosquito bites or through sex, is difficult to track. Four in five people infected do not exhibit symptoms. In some affected countries, women have been advised to delay pregnancy.

“Officials are very concerned because they see what’s coming,” Rubio, who ascribed blame for political inaction to both parties, told the Guardian. “It’s hard for me to understand how it got to this point.

“The fact that the funding hasn’t flowed is inexplicable to people, on an issue like this of a public health nature.”

In 2014, as an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa prompted widespread panic, Congress approved $5.4bn in emergency funding. As lawmakers stalled on appropriating money for Zika, despite the declaration by the World Health Organization that the virus was a global public health emergency, the White House was forced to tap into unspent Ebola funds.

Frieden, the CDC director, warned that Ebola was by no means a problem of the past.

“All of those resources are at risk,” he said.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said work to produce vaccines for Zika would be affected by congressional inaction. Researchers had hoped to begin a second phase of clinical trials by early 2017. Fauci said funding would now run out by the end of August or the beginning of September.

In August, the staging in Rio de Janeiro of the Olympic Games is expected to shine a spotlight on the Zika epidemic. Although officials have said the risk of contracting Zika in Rio is low, several high-profile athletes have pulled out.

The CDC advises that women exhibiting symptoms of Zika wait at least eight weeks before trying to get pregnant. Men should wait at least six months after their symptoms first appear before having unprotected sex.

As of last month, seven babies had been born in the US with Zika-related birth defects. A case of a baby born with microcephaly was reported in Texas on Thursday, the day Congress failed to meet its self-imposed deadline for passing Zika funding.

Citing cases of the virus in Florida, Nelson said he expected there to be hundreds of new diagnoses – if not more – across the US by the time lawmakers returned to Washington.

“I think the people are going to be absolutely up in arms,” he said. “That’s what the American people are so turned off to, these kinds of partisan political games.

“If it’s an emergency, it’s an emergency. Deal with it.”