The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promise to invest $26 million in developing next-generation infectious disease forecasting and analytics.
They will provide $21 million to support the research and development of advanced infectious disease models and analytical tools as well.
These funds will help support three years of work at five leading academic institutions: University at Albany, State University of New York; Johns Hopkins University; Stanford University; the University of Utah and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The CDC, in its press release also announced $5 million to support collaborations with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy to further advance federal infectious disease modeling capabilities. The funds will support rapid-response research projects and provide access to high-performance computing resources.
“These investments are part of a broader effort to improve the nation’s ability to use data, modeling, and analytics to improve pandemic preparedness and response. Funding for these projects comes from the American Rescue Plan of 2021.
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“The funded work will develop new methods and resources for analyzing infectious disease data to support public health decision-making; create tools and programmes to train the next generation of infectious disease modelers; understand and develop evidence-based strategies to combat health inequities in outbreaks.“These awards are the first investments by CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics,” the release read in part.”
The CFA’s Director for Operations, Dylan George said “These investments will improve the nation’s ability to forecast infectious-disease outbreaks and to better inform local leaders on how to respond.
“We are excited to work with the renowned experts on these needed projects.”
