On Saturday, a federal health official revealed that the Trump administration's mass reduction of health department personnel included a "coding error" that caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to mistakenly send layoff notices to employees in key departments.

The official stated that personnel involved in responding to the Ebola outbreak in Africa and measles outbreaks in the United States were among those who received the erroneous termination notices.

Two sources disclosed that the majority of employees in the department responsible for publishing the CDC's weekly scientific journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), also received dismissal notices.

The federal health official noted that these employees were similarly part of the mistaken layoffs.

The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report is hailed as "the voice of the CDC" and is widely recognized and referenced by clinicians nationwide, having served as the CDC's standard scientific journal for decades.

The federal health official indicated that the mistakenly terminated employees will "eventually" receive formal notification reversing their layoff decisions, a process that may take only a few days.

According to the information provided, the coding error only affected 4 departments within the CDC, which means that hundreds of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will still face unemployment.