Strengthening Public Health Laboratories Internationally | CDC RFA GH16 17200101SUPP19

Opportunity Information: Apply for CDC RFA GH16 17200101SUPP19

The "Strengthening Public Health Laboratories Internationally" grant opportunity is a CDC cooperative agreement designed to help countries build and sustain strong national public health laboratory (NPHL) systems as part of the U.S. Government's Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). GHSA is positioned as a practical framework for helping nations meet the International Health Regulations (2005) requirements, with this funding focused specifically on IHR Core Capacity 8 (laboratory). In plain terms, the opportunity is meant to improve how countries organize, run, and connect their laboratory services so they can detect, confirm, and characterize high-impact pathogens quickly and safely, and then translate lab results into timely public health action.

The program centers on developing "tiered" laboratory services that follow international best practices and standards. A tiered model generally means laboratories at different levels of the health system (for example, national reference labs, regional labs, and local or peripheral labs) each perform roles that match their capability, with clear referral pathways for more specialized testing. The CDC emphasizes that a resilient national system is not only a single central lab, but a coordinated network that includes public and private laboratories and spans multiple sectors: clinical laboratories, public health laboratories, veterinary labs, food safety labs, and environmental labs. The intent is to integrate these labs into the country's broader healthcare and surveillance systems so that information flows efficiently, specimens can be referred correctly, and results can support surveillance and outbreak response across the whole country.

The main technical areas highlighted map closely to the components of IHR laboratory capacity. This includes strengthening national policy and coordination for laboratory services, improving diagnostic and confirmatory testing capacity, and enhancing laboratory biosafety and biosecurity so work is conducted in a safety-minded and secure environment. Another major emphasis is laboratory-based surveillance: ensuring that laboratories are not just doing tests in isolation, but are producing quality-controlled data that feeds into disease monitoring systems, helps differentiate and characterize new or emerging threats, and supports evidence-based decisions by public health authorities. The overall aim is faster, more reliable detection and reporting of epidemic-prone diseases and other serious health threats, enabling authorities to respond rapidly and effectively.

CDC also frames the need for this investment around persistent global vulnerabilities that continue to put countries at risk despite progress in recent decades. These gaps include weak or uneven disease surveillance in certain geographic areas, institutional and logistical barriers that slow service delivery, challenges and hesitancy around sharing outbreak information or biological samples, the ongoing emergence of new pathogens, increasing antimicrobial and drug resistance, limited public health protections at borders, and the possibility of intentional or accidental release of biological agents. The funding opportunity argues that strengthening laboratory systems is a practical way to reduce these vulnerabilities by improving prevention, detection, and response capacity for outbreaks, potential Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEICs), and other major public health events.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary funding opportunity from the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under CFDA 93.318, using a cooperative agreement mechanism. A cooperative agreement typically means the CDC expects to have substantial involvement in the work, such as providing technical guidance, collaboration, and oversight rather than simply issuing a grant with minimal federal interaction. The opportunity was posted under Funding Opportunity Number CDC RFA GH16-17200101SUPP19, with an anticipated single award (Expected Awards: 1) and an award ceiling of $10,000,000. The original application closing date listed was August 19, 2019, with electronic submissions due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Eligibility is noted broadly as "Others" with additional clarification referenced in the full announcement, suggesting that applicants needed to consult the eligibility section for specific details on which organizations could apply.

Taken together, the opportunity is essentially about building a connected, quality-driven national laboratory ecosystem that can safely and accurately detect priority health threats, support surveillance with actionable data, and strengthen a country's ability to meet international health security expectations under IHR and GHSA.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control - CGH in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Strengthening Public Health Laboratories Internationally" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.318.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 18, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 19, 2019 Electronically submitted applications must be submitted no later than 1159 p.m., ET, on the listed application due date.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for CDC RFA GH16 17200101SUPP19

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