Budgetary Restraints Force CDC to Downsize International Programs

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been forced to reduce international epidemic detection and prevention programs. For many decades, the CDC has maintained a presence in as many as 49 nations to work with local health officials and to monitor outbreaks of disease. According to Dr. Rebecca Martin, Director of the CDC Center for Global Health, the agency will have to scale back the Global Health Security portfolio to focus efforts based on existing resources. Addressing her colleagues in an internal CDC E-mail, Dr. Martin noted “Faced with this anticipated fiscal reality, we have to make some very difficult decisions.” The wind-down will commence in October 2019 unless additional funding is provided. The CDC was a recipient of a five-year supplemental grant following the Ebola outbreak in 2014.Short changing the CDC is unjustified. It is far better to recognize and address a serious epidemic in the nation of origin and interdict spread before it extends to the Homeland. Stationing and rotating CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers and research workers in countries with the likelihood of emerging serious diseases with epidemic or even pandemic potential provides experience which may be required to control naturally-occurring diseases or bioterrorism in the U.S.