[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 42 (Monday, March 4, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Page 7393]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-03842]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES


Renewal of Cooperative Agreement With the Pan American Health 
Organization

AGENCY: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response 
(ASPR), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and 
Response (ASPR), in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 
intends to provide a Single Source Three Year Cooperative Agreement to 
the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The Cooperative Agreement 
will continue to improve operational capabilities to provide timely, 
coordinated, and quality medical response to disasters in the Americas 
region by supporting the WHO Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) Initiative. 
The collaboration between ASPR and PAHO will focus on supporting PAHO's 
strategy to develop and train national emergency medical teams with a 
set of global standards in each country in the region to ensure they 
can respond to emergencies within their own borders. PAHOs regional 
strategy for the EMT Initiative concentrates on building emergency 
medical teams domestically, for each country in the region, to ensure 
they can respond to emergencies within their own borders first, thereby 
reducing dependence on U.S. medical assets/capabilities. The total 
proposed cost of the Single Source Cooperative Agreement is not to 
exceed $1 million over the three-year life of the Cooperative 
Agreement.

DATES: 
    Project Period: The period of performance is from September 30, 
2019 to September 30, 2022.
    Award Amount: Estimate $1 million.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 
    Maria Marinissen--Maria .[email protected], (202) 205-4214.
    Michael Guterbock--Michael .[email protected], (202) 701-5631.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Office of the Assistant Secretary for 
Preparedness and Response (ASPR), International Policy Branch is the 
program office for this Cooperative Agreement.
    Single Source Justification: Founded in 1902, PAHO, based in 
Washington DC, is an international public health agency working to 
improve the health and living standards of the people of the Americas 
Region. It is part of the United Nations system, serving as the 
Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization 
(WHO). PAHO is uniquely placed to enhance the medical response 
capabilities of countries in the Americas Region. The partnership 
between ASPR and PAHO gives ASPR the ability to shape critical outcomes 
of the EMT Initiative regionally, and helps inform a timely HHS 
decision about whether and how to participate in the next generation of 
international response systems. Although no USG emergency medical 
response team is part of the EMT, multiple U.S. based non-governmental 
organizations have been certified or are in the process of 
certification. It is critical that HHS/ASPR maintains visibility on 
U.S. based EMTs for both situational awareness and coordination 
purposes during emergency responses abroad or domestically. 
Furthermore, increasing the regional disaster response capacities may 
help alleviate the burden on U.S. resources and assets every time our 
country is called to provide assistance in the region. Importantly, 
since there are no self-sufficient USG medical teams ready to deploy 
internationally and registered in PAHO's roster of EMTs, making sure 
countries have their own teams may significantly decrease requests for 
assistance from the USG and the potential for burden to U.S. assets.
    The three-year scope of work of the renewed cooperative agreement 
will build upon the successes of past activities, including the 
following overarching objectives:
     Development of SOPs and plans for emergency and disaster 
response of pre-hospital emergency services and EMTs, and the 
development of tools/guidelines for the optimization of the delivery of 
clinical care during emergencies.
     Provision of technical support to develop national 
mechanisms for the registration and mapping of local emergency medical 
teams for domestic response; mentoring for the creation and operation 
of EMTs; technical support to national EMTs to ensure self-sufficiency 
and provision of timely and quality clinical care.
     Development and strengthening of nationally-led health 
emergency coordination mechanisms (Health EOCs) and technical support 
to countries to establish or strengthen their health EOCs.
     Integration of national coordination mechanisms (CICOM) 
including guidelines and operational support for the creation, 
management and implementation of national CICOM.
     Strengthening of regional health emergency surge capacity 
including capacity building of national experts in critical areas of 
emergency coordination, health services, surveillance, logistics, 
damage and needs assessment, risk communication, etc.
    Please submit an inquiry via the ASPR Program Contact: Michael 
Guterbock, MPH, Michael.[email protected], (202) 701-5631.

    Authority: Section 301 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act.

    Dated: February 25, 2019.
Robert P. Kadlec,
Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.
[FR Doc. 2019-03842 Filed 3-1-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4150-37-P