The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will invest $2.1 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act to help public health and other partners fight COVID-19 and other emerging infections in health care facilities, the Biden Administration announced today. The funding includes $1.25 billion for public health departments to deploy “strike teams” to help skilled nursing facilities, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities fight COVID-19 outbreaks, increase laboratory capacity and work with health care facilities to prevent and control infectious disease threats; and $880 million to help health care and other partners develop new interventions, training and other capacities to prevent and control infections.

“Funding will provide significant resources to our public health departments and healthcare systems and opportunities to develop innovative strategies to protect every segment of the U.S. population, especially those disproportionately affected by the pandemic, at a time that they are hit hard,” said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, M.D.
 

Headline
Two individuals in Pennsylvania have died from measles, the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced Aug. 25. They are the first deaths from the disease in…
Headline
The Department of Health of Human Services Aug. 21 issued a request for information seeking feedback on immunization categories within the Aug. 10 executive…
Headline
For the 2025-2026 school year, exemptions from one or more vaccines among U.S. kindergartners was at 4.2%, increasing from 3.6% for the previous school year,…
Headline
President Trump signed an executive order Aug. 10 revamping the federal government’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule. The order divides immunizations…
Headline
A study published Aug. 5 by Nature found that COVID-19 infection can reactivate dormant, chronic viruses such as Epstein-Barr and cytomegalovirus. The study…
Headline
The Food and Drug Administration Aug. 5 approved the first mRNA-based flu vaccine, called mFlusiva. The vaccine is manufactured by Moderna and was approved for…