Pakistan among countries to lose US CDC funding

WASHINGTON: Pakistan would be among a host of countries barred from getting US funding under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) following deal to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted on Sunday.

Greene’s tweet came soon after President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy reached a tentative deal to raise the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling.

The CDC is the national public health agency. The agency’s main goal is the protection of public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability in the US and worldwide. “Hearing @SpeakerMcCarthy’s soon-to-be-finalised agreement on the debt limit will claw back $400 million from the CDC Global Health Fund that sends money overseas to countries like China,” Greene tweeted.

“Here’s a few other countries that will no longer get access to these taxpayer dollars: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burma, Cambodia, China, Ivory Coast, DRC, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mail, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe,” she added. “Also on the chopping block is nearly $1.5 billion from the CDC’s Vaccine Distribution and Monitoring Program.”

The agreement was announced on Saturday by President Biden and Republican leader McCarthy after weeks of crisis talks offered a path back from the default precipice, but it was far from certain that the compromises it contained could garner the support it required from both sides of the aisle.