On July 1, 1946 the US Communicable Disease Center (CDC) began with the primary mission to prevent malaria from spreading across the nation.  In 1970 this agency was renamed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). [1]

“The history of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began in 1942 with the establishment of the Malaria Control in War Areas (MCWA), under the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS). The U.S. military had suffered severely from malaria during World War I, and although the reported incidence had dropped during the 1930s, a cyclical 5- to 7-year pattern of disease raised concern.”  The MCWA headquarters were based in Atlanta, Georgia, with close associations with 15 state health departments.  Atlanta is still the home of the CDC today.

President Roosevelt signed the Public Health Service Act of 1943 into law on November 11, 1943, which was updated July 5, 1944.

Going back, after Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt became President-elect Roosevelt, he asked his then Public Health Services officer for New York, Thomas Parran to prepare plans to coordinate all Federal health activities. Parran would become the Surgeon General and “strengthen[ed] and extended the research programs at the National Institute of Health, established the Communicable Disease Center and participated in the planning of the World Health Organization.”