The Palau Ministry of Health and Human Services is requesting funding through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (ELC) Cooperative Agreement. The Notice of Funding Opportunity number is CDC-RFA-CK24-002.
The CDC ELC program has grown to become one of CDC’s key cooperative agreements for supporting capacity building in the three sections: 1) Cross-cutting Emerging Infectious Disease Capacity, Systems, and Leadership; 2) Emerging Infectious Diseases Program; 3) Disease-Specific Projects.
This cooperative agreement provides essential support for Palau’s public health infectious disease infrastructure by funding a range of critical workforce positions in epidemiology, laboratory services and health information systems to prevent, respond to and control infectious disease threats.
Specifically, ELC funding to MHHS supports:
• Epidemiologists with flexible responsibilities to collect, track and analyze surveillance data to detect, investigate, and control outbreaks of reportable and/or emerging infectious diseases;
• Laboratorians with flexible responsibilities to support detection of priority pathogens through advanced molecular testing methods;
• Facilitating the adoption of new information systems and modern tools to support the collection, management and use of data to inform timely public health interventions.
• Support for surveillance, investigation, control and prevention of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance.
• Surveillance, prevention and control of mosquito-borne arboviral diseases such as dengue fever, Chikungunya, and Zika;
• Broad support for surveillance and laboratory testing for COVID-19, Influenza and other priority respiratory pathogens.
