Obama seeks more funds to fight A/H1N1 flu

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WASHINGTON, June 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking an additional funding of 2 billion U.S. dollars from the Congress to fight the A/H1N1 flu strain.

The new request was made in a letter he wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which was revealed Wednesday.

The funding will be on top of the one-and-a-half-billion dollars the president has already sought from the Congress to buy antivirals, emergency equipment and to fund vaccine development in the wake of the H1N1 flu outbreak.

Obama said in the letter that he made the new request "out of an abundance of caution."

He noted the administration had learned more about the flu outbreak and the response that may be required at the national level in the months ahead.

Obama intends to include the 2 billion dollars in a war-funding bill and will thus push the bill's total over 100 billion dollars.

That has raised the ire of Democrats who are seeking a 99-billion-dollar limit for the bill, while Republicans threatened to withdraw their support for the measure if a credit line for the International Monetary Fund is kept in the bill.