In the end, those pesky, persistent mosquitoes forced the hands of a feuding Congress.

For months, lawmakers have been locked in a highly partisan battle over funding to fight the outbreak of the Zika virus. In February, the White House asked for $1.9 billion to accelerate vaccine research and improve testing, conduct mosquito surveillance and control, and improve health services for low-income pregnant women.

Despite the pleas of health officials, such as U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden and local and state officials in affected areas in Florida and Puerto Rico, the issue of funding the fight against Zika was caught up in a separate political battle when Democrats resisted Republican attempts to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds.

The delay forced the Obama administration to take urgent but distasteful action, such as redirecting $589 million intended to combat the Ebola outbreak, to address the Zika threat. But even that funding was not nearly enough to combat the spread of Zika, and the administration continued to pressure Congress to sign off on the emergency funding request. On Sept. 29, Congress finally ended the stalemate by sending an appropriations bill to President Barack Obama that included $1.1 billion to fight Zika. But the dispute had dragged on through a summer of moderate to high prevalence of mosquitos that can carry the Zika virus, which increased the risk of the virus spreading further. The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico suffered the greatest hit, with 21,535 locally acquired mosquito-borne cases of Zika as of late September.

Zika is not just a public health issue. It is an economic issue. The tourism industry of Florida, which experienced 59 locally acquired mosquito-borne cases of Zika, has an economic value of about $67 billion. The CDC issued two Zika-related travel warnings for the state in August, and while the agency recently lifted one of those warnings, the threat persists.

It is also a workplace safety issue. The CDC and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued interim guidance in April for protecting outdoor workers, health care and laboratory workers and others from occupational exposure to the Zika virus. But there are limits to OSHA’s jurisdiction. The Occupational Safety and Health Act covers most private employees but not volunteers or state and local government workers unless they are in a state that has an OSHA-approved state plan. Due to these limitations, the agency had no jurisdiction over the first occupational Zika case reported in the United States in June.

But the avoidable heightened risk to public health caused by the partisan bickering is the most troubling. We may as a country have become immune to feuding among our elected officials, but the idea that pregnant women were placed at higher risk of giving birth to babies who could suffer severe brain injuries such as microcephaly is unconscionable.