A former economic adviser to President Trump’s campaign is calling on him to appoint a new director for the Centers for Disease Control.

Betsy McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor, told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interview that aired Sunday on AM 970 in New York that Trump should appoint a CDC director who will “go to bat for patients and demand honest reporting of infection rates” in hospitals.

“This is an opportunity for him to start solving this deadly problem by appointing a new head to the CDC who will go to bat for patients and demand honest reporting of infection rates,” McCaughey said.

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Former CDC Director Thomas Frieden resigned from the post on Jan. 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration. Trump has yet to appoint a new director to lead the agency, which is currently being overseen by Acting Director Anne Schuchat.

McCaughey claimed that hospital infection rates in the U.S. are widely underreported and that hospitals have routinely sought to cover up the actual number of infectious disease deaths.

Trump, she said, is likely to tackle that issue, because he is “germaphobic.”

“I think Trump is going to get on this. He is germaphobic. He really cares about hospital safety,” she said.

The president is a professed germaphobe, writing in his 1997 book “Art of the Comeback” that handshakes are “one of the curses of American society,” because he views them as unclean.

“I happen to be a clean hands freak,” he wrote. “I feel much better after I thoroughly wash my hands, which I do as much as possible.”