Bengaluru: U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to nominate Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the organization that she currently leads in an acting capacity, a White House official said on Monday.
Monarez was previously deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, a research funding agency that describes itself as supporting “transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs.” She also previously held roles at the Department of Homeland Security and the White House in the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Atlanta-based CDC, with an annual budget of $17.3 billion, tracks and responds to domestic and foreign threats to public health. Roughly two-thirds of its budget funds the public health and prevention activities of state and local health agencies.
It is also responsible for making vaccine recommendations for Americans, including by setting the childhood vaccination schedule, and funds vaccines for children who otherwise would not have access to them.
Monarez would report to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Department of Health and Human Services was not immediately available for comment.
The White House earlier this month withdrew the nomination of former Republican congressman and vaccine critic Dave Weldon to head the CDC. Weldon told Reuters at the time he had been informed there were not enough Senate votes to confirm him for the post. (Reporting by Jeff Mason and Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Leslie Adler and Richard Chang)
