CDC Announces $2.1 Billion Investment for Infection Prevention

On Sept. 17, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a press release announcing a $2.1 billion investment to improve infection prevention and control activities across the U.S. public health and healthcare sectors.

The release states that “The Biden-Harris Administration, working through the CDC, is investing American Rescue Plan funding to strengthen and equip state, local, and territorial public health departments and other partner organizations with the resources needed to better fight infections in U.S. healthcare facilities, including COVID-19 and other known and emerging infectious diseases.”

Further, “The funding announced today is a commitment that will allow the United States to expand public health and improve the quality of healthcare in our country, including addressing healthcare-related inequities. It will assist healthcare personnel to prevent infections more effectively in healthcare settings, support rapid response to detect and contain infectious organisms, enhance laboratory capacity, and engage in innovation targeted at combating infectious disease threats. Improvements in infection prevention will span the healthcare continuum, including 6,000 hospitals, 15,400 nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, 7,900 dialysis clinics, and 4,700 ambulatory surgery centers, and will extend to other outpatient settings.”

CDC director Rochelle P. Walensky, M.D., was quoted in the release saying that “This funding will dramatically improve the safety and quality of the healthcare delivered in the United States during the pandemic and in the future. 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.”

Over the next three years, the CDC will issue $1.25 billion of the total to 64 state, local, and territorial health departments for support. $885 million will initially be awarded in October 2021 to the 64 health departments and the CDC will use $500 million in October to support state-based nursing home and long-term care strike teams, as it is the most disproportionately affected population.

The remainder, $385 million, will be awarded in October 2021 to state, local, and territorial health departments to strengthen five critical areas:

• State capacity to prevent, detect, and contain infectious disease threats across healthcare settings: The CDC will provide infection prevention and control assistance to public health departments to work with healthcare facilities to improve the quality of healthcare and strengthen interventions for the prevention and containment of infectious diseases to minimize the spread of infection in a variety of healthcare settings.
• Laboratory capacity for healthcare: Funds provided will also increase state and regional laboratory capacity to conduct surveillance for emerging pathogens to better identify patients infected with or carrying infectious disease threats.
• Project Firstline: Project Firstline aims to meet educational needs of its diverse healthcare workforce, ensuring they have the knowledge they need to protect themselves, their coworkers, and their patients.
• National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN): CDC will increase data and monitoring through NHSN to determine where and when infections occur in healthcare settings and target IPC interventions.
• Antibiotic stewardship: Funds will support state data analyses of antibiotic use and implement programs to improve antibiotic prescribing across communities, including addressing health disparities related to antibiotic use.

The release concludes that “The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of infection prevention and control in healthcare to keep the U.S. population—especially our most vulnerable people in nursing homes and hospitals—safe and healthy. The year 2020 marked an unprecedented time for healthcare facilities, many of which were faced with extraordinary circumstances of increased patient caseload, staffing challenges, and other operational changes that may have reduced the implementation of normal infection prevention practices. Recent studies have shown substantial increases in healthcare-associated infections during the pandemic in central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), ventilator-associated events (VAEs), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia. The data show an urgent need to strengthen infection prevention and control capacities and build healthcare resiliency to withstand future pandemics and maintain national prevention progress.”