Money is aimed at helping affected countries in West Africa, including Guinea. Flickr user European Commission DG ECHO
CDC to Award More Money to Fight Ebola
The $10 million grant will go to multiple recipients.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will award multiple grants totaling about $10 million beginning in December to help fight Ebola in West Africa.
The money, appropriated by Congress in the fiscal 2015 continuing resolution passed in September, will go to “select Ministries of Health and their bona fide agents,” according to the notice, which the agency will publish on Friday in the Federal Register. The notice corrects an earlier version the agency published last week.
This is separate from a $1.8 million grant that the CDC recently announced for the African Field Epidemiology Network, a nonprofit network of public health training institutions in Africa. “Both of these actions are being taken by CDC to assist in addressing the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa and contain the disease as quickly as possible,” said Rachel Johnson, a public health analyst in the CDC’s procurement and grants office, by email.
The agency expects to award between $300,000 and $1.5 million to multiple recipients on Dec. 11, the latest notice announced. Eligible grantees must submit their application by Dec. 1 with detailed information on how they plan to spend the funds between Dec. 11, 2014, and Sept. 29, 2015. Fiscal 2015 ends on Sept. 30, 2015.
The money is aimed at helping affected countries in West Africa – those dealing with the outbreak as well as neighboring countries. Specifically, it will target Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria “to support the responses of the CDC to the outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa,” the notice said.
Lawmakers provided $88 million in emergency funds in the fiscal 2015 continuing resolution -- which expires Dec. 11 -- to help deal with the Ebola outbreak. Appropriators already are preparing to offer additional money in the next government funding measure, pending a request by the Obama administration.
Ebola so far has killed more than 5,000 people. One person -- Thomas Eric Duncan – has died in the United States from the disease. Duncan died in Dallas on Oct. 8 from the virus, eight days after being diagnosed. He had recently been in Liberia.
(Image via Flickr user European Commission DG ECHO)