Inactive
Notice ID:2023-72144
This is a Sources Sought notice. This is not a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capabil...
This is a Sources Sought notice. This is not a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of qualified sources to perform a potential requirement. BACKGROUND: The Division of HIV Prevention (DHP) within the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) conducts HIV surveillance to characterize and monitor the HIV burden, determinants, and impact to guide public health action, prevent new HIV infections, improve health outcomes, and promote health equity. Within DHP, the Detection and Response Branch (DRB) leads national efforts to identify HIV clusters and outbreaks and support timely and tailored responses. Surveillance is critical both as a source of data to identify clusters and outbreaks and evaluate progress toward DRB’s goals. DHP funds 59 state and local health departments (HDs) to conduct HIV surveillance and provides standardized case definitions, data collection forms, reporting software and technical assistance and training. Through the National HIV Surveillance System (NHSS), the HDs collect HIV nucleotide sequences from laboratories, store the data in the jurisdiction’s local HIV surveillance system, and report these sequences to CDC. Sequences are generated as a result of drug-resistance testing ordered by HIV medical providers, most often near the time of entry into care. Using HIV TRAnsmission Cluster Engine (HIV-TRACE), an application developed by the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), DRB conducts national transmission network analyses by performing pairwise comparisons to calculate genetic distances between sequences. DRB uses the results to identify molecular clusters indicative of rapid transmission. Detection and prioritization of growing HIV clusters is a critical component of the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative and is part of an overall intervention designed to halt HIV transmission: cluster detection and response (CDR). It is essential that jurisdictions have continuous access to tools capable of identifying and monitoring such clusters at the local level in near real-time. Through a previously funded project, the CDC contracted with UCSD to build Secure HIV-TRACE, a secure, user-friendly, web-based application that applies principles of HIV evolution, evolutionary biology, and molecular epidemiology (methodology similar to that used at CDC for cluster detection using national data). Secure HIV-TRACE allows jurisdictions to infer molecular clusters locally, facilitating prompt identification of networks of ongoing transmission and implementation of appropriate interventions to avert further transmission. State and local health departments maintain the regulatory authority and confidentiality protections to receive personally identifiable information, clinical and risk information, and laboratory reports on persons diagnosed with HIV. Health departments are also responsible for case identification, prevention intervention, and monitoring and tracking disease. Because health departments are uniquely positioned to conduct HIV surveillance and prevention activities, it is critical to build the bioinformatics capacity to infer, analyze, visualize, and interpret HIV transmission networks at the state and local level. Integration of HIV transmission network analyses into HIV surveillance programs helps jurisdictions use existing surveillance data and information available from other sources to promptly identify networks of ongoing transmission, implement appropriate interventions, and identify gaps in existing prevention and care programs. Secure HIV-TRACE is the tool that CDC makes available to HDs that are required to conduct analyses of molecular data from surveillance, detect HIV clusters, and conduct responses and interventions. Continued maintenance of Secure HIV-TRACE is imperative to ensure that the application remains operational and meets CDC security standards for end users to reliably perform analyses on-demand. Further, as programmatic priorities and metrics for cluster detection and response evolve (based upon principles of HIV evolution, evolutionary biology, and molecular epidemiology), development and enhancement of the application must evolve accordingly. The agency has also adopted a Data Modernization Initiative (DMI) to increasingly move toward system integration and improve the ability for data to be translated into high-quality information for swift decision-making. Applicable priorities for Secure HIV-TRACE include enhancing the application’s code for future development and modernization, assessing and leveraging opportunities for integration with other systems and tools, further aligning the application’s functionality with CDC programmatic guidance, and increasing user capacity and knowledge by developing and updating training resources. Additional priorities include (1) multijurisdictional cluster detection, and (2) adapting Secure HIV-TRACE to enable molecular cluster detection analyses with national data from CDC within the application. These additional priorities will further align national and local methodologies and facilitate communication on detection and monitoring of concerning clusters across jurisdictions. PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) is seeking a contractor to provide ongoing operations and maintenance (O&M) and development, modernization, and enhancement (DME) and related support for Secure HIV-TRACE. Required and optional tasks may be categorized into the following broad areas: 1) Contract/project management and oversight. 2) Operations and maintenance (O&M) of system, including security. 3) Development, modernization, enhancement (DME) of system. 4) User support and training development. See the attached draft Statement of Work (SOW) for additional details. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE (POP): The POP for this requirement will include a base period of 12 months, followed by two 12 month option periods. Capability Statement/Information Sought: Interested firms are requested to submit a capability statement, which shall include documentation of the expertise and ability to perform the requirements listed in the draft SOW, on previous successfully completed contracts for the same or similar service (please detail your ability to perform each task listed in the draft SOW). The respondent must also provide their DUNS number, organization name, address, points of contact, and size and type of business (e.g., 8(a), HubZone, etc., pursuant to the applicable NAICS code), and any other information that may be helpful in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements. Please limit your responses to ten (10) pages. All responses to this notice must be submitted electronically. Facsimile responses will not be accepted. Please submit responses to Denedra Threatt, Contract Specialist, at DThreatt2@cdc.gov. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice is issued to help determine the availability of qualified companies technically capable of meeting the Government requirement and to determine the method of acquisition. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotes. No award will be made as a result of this notice. The Government will not be responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. This notice is strictly for research and information purposes only. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. Submissions will not be returned. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response.
