Strengthening India’s integrated HIV/STI tiered laboratory network through continuous quality improvement, surveillance, and laboratory data management under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) | CDC RFA JG 25 0102

Opportunity Information: Apply for CDC RFA JG 25 0102

This funding opportunity (CDC RFA JG 25 0102) is a PEPFAR-supported cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) focused on strengthening Indias national HIV and STI laboratory system under the National AIDS Control Program (NACP) within the Ministry of Health. The overall intent is to protect and build on recent program gains by improving the quality, reach, and integration of HIV/STI diagnostic services across a tiered laboratory network, while also strengthening surveillance and laboratory data management so testing information can be used more quickly and effectively for patient care and public health action.

For funding, CDC lists an approximate total of $1,000,000 expected to be available for Year 1, depending on available funds, with up to 2 awards anticipated. Notably, the notice states the award ceiling for Year 1 is 0 (none), which is a technical listing sometimes used in notices to indicate there is no fixed maximum cap per award specified in the posting, rather than implying there will be no funding. The application closing date is February 25, 2025. The opportunity is broad in who can apply, including various levels of government, public and private colleges and universities, tribal governments and organizations, nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status, for-profit entities (including small businesses), and essentially unrestricted applicants, reflecting that CDC may fund the most suitable partner(s) to implement complex national laboratory strengthening work.

Programmatically, the opportunity centers on improving how Indias HIV/STI diagnostic network is organized and performs. A key emphasis is optimizing diagnostic networks to increase efficiency and make testing more accessible, including through innovative strategies that can reduce turnaround times, improve specimen referral systems, and better match testing platforms and capacity to where demand is greatest. Another major goal is saturating viral load coverage, meaning expanding and stabilizing HIV viral load testing so that people on treatment can be routinely monitored and programs can track progress toward viral suppression with fewer gaps by geography, population, or facility type.

Quality and safety are central themes. The award aims to improve biosafety across laboratories to reduce occupational risk and strengthen safe handling, transport, and processing of specimens. It also prioritizes achieving and maintaining International Organization for Standardization (ISO) accreditation along with relevant national certifications, signaling a push toward consistent, internationally benchmarked quality management systems. Complementing this, the notice highlights expanding proficiency testing programs across multiple testing parameters, which supports ongoing verification that laboratories can produce accurate, reliable results not only for a single assay but across a broader menu of HIV and STI diagnostics and related measurements.

The opportunity also places strong weight on patient-centered service delivery models, particularly scaling point-of-care testing (POCT) where it can overcome real-world barriers to access. This includes reaching people in settings where centralized lab services are hard to access, reducing the number of visits needed to receive results, and improving linkage to treatment. It also explicitly encourages integration of multi-disease tests, reflecting a practical direction in public health laboratories toward platforms and workflows that can support more than one condition, which can reduce fragmentation, lower costs, and improve the patient experience. Alongside expansion, the notice underscores the need for quality improvement, certification, and validation, meaning that new sites and new testing approaches should be introduced with documented performance standards and continuous monitoring rather than rapid scale-up without safeguards.

Beyond routine diagnostics, the NOFO includes advanced surveillance-oriented capabilities. It calls for incorporating molecular epidemiology to identify transmission networks and emerging needs, which can help programs detect clusters, monitor outbreaks, and understand how HIV is spreading in different contexts. Relatedly, it includes conducting HIV drug resistance testing, which is important for monitoring resistance patterns, informing regimen decisions at the program level, and protecting long-term treatment effectiveness. Finally, the notice encourages using implementation science to test and adopt innovative laboratory models that measurably improve detection, coverage, and access. In practice, this can mean piloting new sample transport approaches, hub-and-spoke designs, digital connectivity solutions for instruments and results reporting, differentiated testing strategies for different populations, and other models that can be evaluated and then scaled when evidence supports them.

In short, this cooperative agreement is designed to help NACP strengthen Indias integrated HIV/STI laboratory network from end to end: better network design, broader viral load coverage, stronger biosafety, consistent accreditation and certification, expanded proficiency testing, more patient-friendly and decentralized testing options, and more sophisticated surveillance functions like molecular epidemiology and drug resistance testing, all supported by continuous quality improvement and better laboratory data management so results translate into faster, higher-quality care and smarter public health decisions.

• The Centers for Disease Control-GHC in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Strengthening India’s integrated HIV/STI tiered laboratory network through continuous quality improvement, surveillance, and laboratory data management under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.067.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-12-06.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-02-25. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Unrestricted.

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