The head of the US public health agency has stepped down after just four weeks on the job, health officials announced Wednesday without explaining her departure, which follows the Trump administration's shift toward vaccine skepticism.

"Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people," the Department of Health, which oversees the CDC, said in a curt statement on X.

Monarez, a health scientist and long-time civil servant, earned US Senate confirmation to the job and was then sworn in by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on July 31.

The Washington Post, which first reported Monarez's dismissal, said she had refused to commit to supporting changes in vaccination policy sought by Kennedy,

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