CDC emergency relief funds are critical to the public health system

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BCHC signed onto a letter sharing concerns about potential rescissions to the COVID relief funds at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The letter was sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The CDC’s emergency relief funds are critical to protecting public health through a variety of essential programs, including but not limited to, Advanced Molecular Detection, Public Health Data Modernization, and the National Wastewater Surveillance System. While these programs were critical in responding to the COVID pandemic, their value in protecting all Americans from emerging threats, extends well beyond that. Pulling these funds back will undermine the progress we have made through these programs.

Several major emerging threats to our national health security loom on the immediate horizon, including H5N1, measles, dengue fever, and mpox; cutting these programs would limit the nation’s ability to respond in a way that the public expects and deserves. We must not continue to fund public health in boom-and-bust cycles. Instead, we need to invest in our public health infrastructure.

These programs support a nimble, adaptive, response-ready public health system. Ensuring that the remaining COVID funding stays at CDC, in addition to providing robust annual funding, is critical to this investment.

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