U.S. President Barack Obama
U.S. President Barack Obama answers a question at a news conference at the conclusion of the NATO Summit at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales September 5, 2014. Reuters

The U.S. President Barack Obama is pushing the Congress to approve $6.2 billion Ebola research fund to confront the dreaded disease in and outside the United States. The demand for preventive safeguards has been buttressed by a recent study by some U.S researchers who concluded that an experimental Ebola vaccine will be safe as it had the back up of credentials from immunity protection proved among volunteers who were tested for it, reported AP. The Obama's proposal is pending before the Congress. White House spokesman Josh Earnest also urged the lawmakers to "take prompt action on it."

Funding Crucial

President Obama, on Tuesday reiterated his call to the Congress to approve the $6 billion emergency funding before the lawmakers depart for Christmas holiday. "We cannot beat Ebola without more funding," the President said at the National Institutes of Health, reported The Hill. Mr Obama visited the Institute in Washington's Maryland suburbs to congratulate the NIH director Francis Collins and director of Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, for their work on Ebola vaccine.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has already designated 35 hospitals in the U.S. as special Ebola treatment centers. Mr Obama asked the critics to see the reality that other global players would not have made the same investment in fighting Ebola, if the United States had not committed first. "American leadership matters every time," Obama said. He said it is the U.S. which sets the tone and agenda. Ebola disease is not just a test of U.S. health system. It is a test of its character as a nation. "It asks us who we are as Americans," Mr. Obama noted.

Christmas Gift

Mr Obama said the approval for funding will be a good Christmas present to the American people and to the world as "we need to protect the American people and need to show the world how America leads." The White House has a challenge in getting the funding approved, mainly in the final weeks of the legislative session. Despite the Ebola package enjoying bipartisan support, the demand for releasing $1.5 billion contingency funding will see resistance from many fiscal conservatives. The corpus is meant for use in bolstering the response to Ebola in West Africa and also in preparing the U.S. health system to fight some isolated cases that might crop up, the Hill report added.