An overview of the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.
Tami Chappell | Reuters
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are withdrawing $ 11.4 billion in funds assigned in response to the pandemic to state and community health departments, non -governmental organizations and international beneficiaries, confirmed on Tuesday the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The Covid-19 Pandemia is over, and the HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayers who respond to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved years ago,” said HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon, in a statement. “The HHS is prioritizing financing projects that will comply with the mandate of President Trump to address our epidemic of chronic diseases and make the United States again healthy.“
The HHS supervises 13 agencies, including CDC, which has the task of protecting the health of the nation. The notices began to leave on Monday and the winners have 30 days to reconcile their expenses. The figures are subject to changes.
The financing bar occurs immediately after other cuts under the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for investigation into the vaccine vaccine, LGBTQ populations and the prevention of support HIV.
“Now that the pandemic is over, subsidies and cooperative agreements are no longer necessary since its limited purpose has been exhausted,” reads termination sent to the beneficiaries on Monday and shared with NBC News.
The Federal Public Health emergency ended on May 11, 2023, but more than 1.2 million Americans have died of Covid according to CDC. Although the infection has slowed down and the disease has become softer, hundreds of people still die every week from Covid, and the long symptoms of Covid continue to cause weakening medical problems in some cases.
The fund funds collected were largely used for COVID, vaccination, community health workers and initiatives to address COVID health disparities between high -risk and unattended populations, including racial and ethnic minority populations and rural communities, as well as high -risk covides projects, according to points sent by email sent by email of CDC to the departments of agencies on Tuesday.
The CDC reviewed a list of COVID grants provided by HHS and cooperative agreements and identified the programs that were no longer necessary, according to the conversation points.
A list of projects for terminated funds was not available immediately. Greg Flynn, director of relations with the media of the Department of Health of the State of Mississippi, confirmed that the State had received a notice of the financing decision and “was currently working to evaluate the potential impacts for our agency.”
Haley talk, public information officer of the Utah Department of Health, said in an email: “We are currently evaluating the impact.”
Until now, HHS has made the deepest budget cut throughout the government under the efforts of the Trump administration to radically reduce federal funds, according to an account that appears on the website of the Government's efficiency department.
The HHS also canceled $ 877 million in grants to the Texas Department of Health and $ 482 million to the Florida Health Department, among other cuts this week, according to the Dege website.
