How USAID’s elimination hit US efforts on cyclospora

When the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gleefully dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last year, it set off a chain of events that is still being felt in the sluggish federal response to a record number of cyclosporiasis infections.  

USAID helped fund key divisions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), such as the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria. Much of that division was focused on the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), a program to combat malaria abroad, as well as other programs to fight neglected tropical diseases. 

PMI was run jointly by the CDC and USAID. The money supported lab and epidemiological work in the field and at the agency. 

But when USAID was gutted, the CDC suddenly found itself with a $30 to $40 million hole in its budget that needed to be plugged.  

“That’s more than half of the amount of money that they get, so that’s a significant cut in funds,” said Daniel Jernigan, former director of the CDC’s Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease division. “So last year, when I was still there, we had to make difficult decisions.” 

The remaining parasitic and malaria funds had to be stretched to cover all the money that was lost from USAID. Cyclospora work was collateral damage. 

“The cutting of USAID funds for malaria and neglected tropical diseases were on top of an insufficiently funded base, essentially disabling the group to where they could not........

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