US Senate confirms Erica Schwartz as CDC director after nearly year of vacancy

WASHINGTON - The US Senate on Wednesday voted to confirm Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after nearly a year-long vacancy in which the role was filled only on an acting basis.

The upper chamber voted 51 to 44 to confirm the nomination, mostly along partisan lines.

Schwartz, who served as deputy surgeon general during President Donald Trump's first term, was already the Trump administration's third nominee to lead the CDC in the past two years.

Trump initially nominated David Weldon, a physician and former US Representative from Florida. Weldon's nomination was withdrawn in March 2025 due to insufficient Senate support.

Then Susan Monarez was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director, but she was fired by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in August 2025, just a month into her tenure, over vaccine policy disagreements.

After Monarez was removed, HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill was appointed acting director of the CDC, but he then departed the department in February 2026, prompting the appointment of Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, as acting CDC chief.

The newly Senate-confirmed CDC director will take the helm of the agency that is confronting a series of high-profile public health threats, ranging from domestic outbreaks of measles and cyclosporiasis to a surge in Ebola cases in Africa.