The Trump administration is reportedly slashing the workforce at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s premier disease-fighting agency, by nearly 1,300 positions.

The decision is part of broader layoffs in the federal government of probationary employees who don’t have civil service protections.

The CDC’s leadership was informed of the decision to slash roughly 10% of the Atlanta-based agency’s workforce on Friday morning, according to The Associated Press.

The CDC has a budget of over $9 billion and is the nation’s front-line defense against infectious diseases. It also issues guidance on vaccines and other health matters.

The agency gained prominence— and controversy — in recent years during crises such as Ebola, Zika and COVID-19. Currently, there is concern about avian flu, which is devastating bird flocks and possibly infecting humans.

The CDC is a part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Just-confirmed new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested he wants to shift some resources from infectious disease-fighting to focus on underlying causes of chronic disease.

Some lawmakers objected to the cuts.

“President Trump’s indefensible, indiscriminate firing of more than 1,000 CDC personnel in a single day leaves Americans exposed to disease and devastates careers and livelihoods for the world’s most talented doctors and scientists, many of them here in Georgia,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, Georgia Democrat, said.

The Fed Up! Coalition, which advocates for federal action against the overdose crisis, called the staff reductions a blow to America’s health system.

“This is a terrible loss,” the coalition wrote on X. “We’ve been advocating for increased CDC surveillance of opioids, including rapid reporting of changes in opioid deaths and rapid reporting of hot spots. It’s hard to see where money for that will come from.”

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.