CDC establishes disease outbreak response network with $262M in grants

Sept. 22 (UPI) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded $262.5 million in grants to 13 organizations to establish a national network to detect and respond to public health emergencies.

The Outbreak Analytics and Disease Modeling Network will develop and implement new tools to detect and respond to disease outbreaks, the CDC said in a news release Friday.

The funding will be awarded over a five-year period and comes from the CDC's Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which was launched last year. Recipients include health departments, tribal organizations, academic institutions and private-sector partners.

The network will complete an analysis of the public health landscape and identify "gaps, needs and opportunities for outbreak analytics and disease modeling," the CDC said.

"(E)stablishing this national network will help us better respond to outbreaks and prevent pandemics in the future," Dr. Dylan George, director of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, said in the news release.

Designated as innovators, integrators or implementers, the grant recipients will focus on three priorities: developing, testing and scaling up new tools and technologies.

Recipients are:

• Emory University
• Northeastern University
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Kaiser Permanente Southern California
• Carnegie Mellon University
• University of Michigan School of Public Health
• University of California, San Diego
• University of Minnesota
• Clemson University
• University of Utah
• International Responder Systems
• The University of Texas at Austin
• The Johns Hopkins University