Layoffs, Upheaval at CDC Trigger Fears on Handling Disease Outbreaks

America is facing threats of infectious diseases on multiple fronts; cases of measles are escalating in Texas and the surrounding states, bird flu is spreading across the country, and cases of polio and Ebola abroad pose an added risk to Americans due to international travel. Amid all these threats of infectious diseases, the U.S. CDC is experiencing mass layoffs and a great deal of uncertainty triggered by Trump’s efforts to downsize federal health agencies and reduce government spending.

The firings have put a strain on personnel numbers within the CDC and it is getting harder to respond appropriately to any disease outbreak. Doctor Deblina Datta, who worked for 24 years as a physician specializing in infectious diseases at the CDC and is now retired, says she has never seen staff morale at the CDC so low as it currently is, and yet this morale hit is coming at a time when workers are faced with several disease outbreaks they need to address.

While more layoffs are expected, the first wave of job cuts has already hit some sections of the CDC severely. For example, employees who have been working to prevent incoming travelers from introducing pathogens into America have been severely downsized. Similarly, a team of CDC scientists that help local authorities to detect disease outbreaks suffered major job cuts.

More worrying is the firing of CDC fellows, PhD-trained scientists called upon to support the Laboratory Leadership Service, has left many worried. These fellows have been frontline workers that help shape disease response. For example, they were involved in developing laboratory tests to screen for Marburg in New York when there was an outbreak. These fellows have been playing a vital role in enabling disease response teams to put together systems and tools for effective interventions. The firings have left this role wobbling.

There are growing worries that the ongoing upheaval and freeze on communication at the CDC and other federal health agencies is going to compromise the attention that current health threats in the country require, such as the ongoing measles outbreak and the growing cases of bird flu that are being detected in different states.

Concerns about vaccine policy changes at the federal government level have caused the CDC to postpone a scheduled meeting of vaccine advisors. The CDC also suspended an advertising campaign promoting flu vaccination, and this happened at a time when the country was facing an unprecedented flu outbreak not seen in a long time.

How soon will stability return to the CDC and other health agencies? Only time will tell, but the cost in terms of inadequate disease response could be high. The policy-level disruptions could end up having negative effects on efforts by firms like Scinai Immunotherapeutics Ltd. (NASDAQ: SCNI) aimed at developing immune therapies targeting many of the infectious diseases that are emerging or reemerging not just in the U.S. but around the world.

NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Scinai Immunotherapeutics Ltd. (NASDAQ: SCNI) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/SCNI

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