CDC pauses testing for rabies and other serious infectious diseases [View all]

Source: AP via NBC

The federal government’s disease-tracking agency has paused its diagnostic testing for rabies, monkeypox and a number of other infectious diseases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week posted a list of more than two dozen types of testing that have become unavailable.

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The pausing of lab testing comes in the wake of the dramatic downsizing of the CDC in the last year through layoffs, retirements, resignations and the nonrenewal of temporary appointments. Staffing fell by 20% to 25%, according to different estimates, and was felt across the agency — including in the laboratories.

The poxvirus and rabies labs lost about half their prior staff, and the CDC’s malaria branch was gutted even more, according to the National Public Health Coalition, an organization of former and current CDC workers that formed in the wake of the downsizing.

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Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-pauses-testing-rabies-monkeypox-epstein-barr-viruses-rcna266377