At this year’s foremost NTD operational research meeting, USAID announced requests for proposals for two urgent research areas: diagnostics and sampling strategies in low-prevalence settings. The research from these activities will ultimately help inform and improve implementation of core NTD program activities, such as disease mapping, monitoring, and surveillance.

Request for Proposal Research Areas:

  1. Research targeting the near-term development of highly specific diagnostic markers, tools and technologies to monitor and evaluate programs aimed at lymphatic filariasis (LF) and onchocerciasis (oncho) in low-prevalence settings.
  2. Research on application of epidemiological and statistical methods that maximize the programmatic effectiveness of survey sampling strategies to detect specific LF and oncho signals in low-prevalence settings.

Awarded grants will be implemented through the Coalition for Operational Research on NTDs project (COR-NTD).

Learn more about the requests for proposals and how to apply here: https://www.ntdsupport.org/resources/request-proposals-optimizing-ntd-diagnostics-and-sampling-strategies-low-prevalence