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CDC Director: Just a few weeks' of Zika funding remain

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the government's fight against the Zika virus says that "we are now essentially out of money" and warns that the country is "about to see a bunch of kids born with microcephaly" in the coming months.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden addressed a handful of reporters as lawmakers start to sort out a stopgap government funding bill that is being targeted to also carry long-delayed money to battle Zika.

Zika is spreading more widely in the U.S. and can not only cause microcephaly - in which babies are born with grave brain defects - but other problems that the country will face for decades.

Frieden said funding delays have slowed long-term studies of the disease and production of new tests for it.

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