TITLE
title
DHHS-PUBLIC HEALTH DIVISION: WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANT GONORRHEA CONTRACT ($327,834)
end
SPONSOR
sponsor
Anita Ramachandran
end
BACKGROUND
background
The Guilford County Department of Health & Human Services - Public Health Division (PH) has established a health trends research contract with Wake Forest University (WFU) Health Sciences with funding support from the North Carolina Department of Health & Human Services - Epidemiology/Communicable Disease Branch. WFU and the PH team are working together on surveillance and research of drug-resistant gonorrhea with WFU helping to: enhance the PH lab's capacity, jointly pilot new methods for gonorrhea resistance testing, and collaboratively develop novel strategies for rapid response to antimicrobial-resistant gonorrhea.
Guilford County has been participating in the SURRG (Strengthening the U.S. Response to Resistant Gonorrhea) program since its inception in 2017. Recently CDC ended the SURRG project and replaced it with CARGOS (Combating Antimicrobial Resistant Gonorrhea and Other STIs) program. In doing so, CDC expanded the program from seven sites to 20 sites across the U.S. The scope of work was modified across all the sites to focus on specific specimen types.
Key components of the CARGOS project include:
1. Strengthen epidemiology capacity to detect, monitor, and respond to antibiotic resistance (AR) in STI’s.
2. Improve coordination of antimicrobial resistance in STI preparedness and outbreak response activities.
3. Enhance local laboratory testing for surveillance, reporting and response.
4. Enhance coordination between epi-lab-health information technology.
The CARGOS program is just one project of a much larger project that CDC awards to NC DDHS Public Health. NC DHHS contracts with Guilford County to ensure that locally a core team of staff is available to meet all the CARGOS strategies, as outlined by CDC. The County does this by sub-contracting Wake Forest School of Medicine. Wake Forest provides subject matter experts, data analysis experts, on-site clinical guidance, on-site laboratory personnel, and if needed, advanced molecular testing. The monies also are used to support an hourly Guilford County employee who is responsible for coordinating all Guilford County CARGOS related activities, ensuring monthly data extraction from the lab system, and monthly submission of lab samples to the Antibiotic Resistance Laboratory Network. The remaining monies are used by Guilford County to purchase laboratory supplies to perform antimicrobial susceptibility testing and other CARGOS related lab testing.
When the scope of work was modified, CDC reduced the overall funding for the CARGOS project. Guilford adjusted the CARGOS budget by reducing the effort and support of Wake Forest and by removing the cost of lab supplies for the testing that was no longer required. Dollars received from CARGOS are sufficient to support all required CDC activities without any additional funding from Guilford County.
From June 1, 2024, through April 30, 2025, CARGOS or SURRG tested 4,561 specimens for gonorrhea, with 128 undergoing sensitivity testing. This number is lower than the reported SURRG numbers in the preceding year due to a revision in the project’s scope of work. Overall, efforts to identify and treat resistant gonorrhea have been successful, as the resistant strains were promptly identified and treated immediately.
The new contract, totaling $327,834, will be in effect from June 1, 2025, to May 31, 2026. This marks the ninth year this funding has been received by Guilford County.
end
BUDGET IMPACT
Budget Impact
NO ADDITIONAL COUNTY FUNDS REQUIRED
FUNDS COMMENSURATE WITH ADOPTION OF FY2025-26 BUDGET
end
REQUESTED ACTION
Requested Action
Approve contract with Wake Forest University Health Sciences, in substantial form, in the amount of $327,834, to be effective for the period June 1, 2025, to May 31, 2026, for a health trends research contract. Funding will be awarded to Guilford County through the NCDHHS Communicable Disease Branch.
end