The White House on Friday sent Congress a request for $30 million to pay for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's efforts to help contain the Ebola outbreak in western Africa.The administration wants the money added to a spending bill to keep government agencies running until mid-December and comes on top of $58 million it requested above current levels to speed the production of promising drugs to fight the deadly disease.
The requests are contained in White Housebudget office documents sent to Capitol Hill's appropriations committees as they prepare the temporary funding measure slated for votes the next two weeks. The measure would freeze government agency budgets at current levels into December. The roster of so-called anomalies was requested to deal with urgent cases a budget freeze could not accommodate.For instance, Friday's $30 million request would pay for agency epidemiologists and intelligence officers who are tracing the spread of the disease in Africa, boosting the number of staff from 100 to 150 or more. It would also pay for support staff in the U.S.An earlier $58 million request for the Centers for Disease Control would help theagency ramp up production and testing of the experimental drug ZMapp, which has shown promise in fighting the Ebola epidemic in western Africa. It would also help keep the development and manufacturing of two Ebola vaccines on track. The White House request seeks to use $10 million in unused balances at the Department of Health and Human Servicesto help with the Ebola outbreak in Africa.