The source of the ‘explosive diarrhoea’ outbreak is still a mystery.

Some public health experts trace the origins of the epidemic to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made several budget and staff cuts in an effort to cut costs at billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The federal government has reduced the capacity of FoodNet, an active foodborne disease surveillance network that tracks several pathogens, including Cyclospora, Salmonella and Listeria. FoodNet has increased backtracking for all but two pathogens in the past year.

“Funding has not kept pace” with the resources needed for the program, the CDC said in a memo to the state of Connecticut, according to NBC News.

Before FoodNet stopped tracking cyclosporosis, it collected data on people who tested positive and tested food sources from states and laboratories nationally, according to Guest, who previously worked at FoodNet.

“When we see an epidemic or a cluster or something, we don’t have the data that we typically go back and wait for to help us, and this is one of those consequences,” she said. “You start in the dark.”

The CDC is still working with 3,000 health departments to collect data and continues to collect data on Cyclospora through surveillance methods other than FoodNet, HS told the BBC.

The department says its health coverage for foodborne illnesses is “stable.”

In Colorado, which has had 90 cases this year — about the same as in previous years — the state health department said it received less federal funding and had fewer staff to handle cases.

“Our colleagues at the CDC are working hard to support our state partners, but we’ve had to adapt to federal changes,” said Hope Schuler, a spokeswoman for the state’s public health department.

She said the state continues to investigate, monitor and send data to the CDC.

Despite agency changes during the Trump administration, federal agencies that oversee food safety are largely operating at the same level as before, Manderach said.

“Although yes, I think there were challenges in the beginning, most of them seem to have been resolved,” he said.

Other serious health problems, such as the deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have also squeezed resources, said David Weber, a professor of medicine, pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Nancy Glick of the National Consumers League said the shortages have put pressure on states to take more responsibility for foodborne illness.

“States are doing that now, but they don’t have the resources that the CDC had,” she said.