Joe Biden’s government to invest $ 1.7 billion to detect new variants of the coronavirus in the United States

Currently, the original strain of the coronavirus comprises only about half of all cases in the United States, while potentially more dangerous new variants make up the other half. According to the information to which Infobae had access, the presidential administration Joe biden invest $ 1.7 billion from the American Rescue Plan to help states and other jurisdictions combat these mutations more effectively.

A critical part of the response to emerging variants is the increase in the country’s genomic sequencing, the process by which coronavirus DNA is decoded and its potentially fatal mutations detected. Funding, allocated through the Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention (CDC), help government agencies, states and other jurisdictions more effectively detect and track variants by expanding genome sequencing efforts. With the information from the sequencing, CDCs and state and local public health officials will be able to apply known preventive measures to stop the spread.

At the beginning of February, American laboratories were only sequencing a few 8,000 strains of coronavirus per week. Since, the sequencing rate has increased significantly, which strengthened the country’s capacity to detect and respond to emerging and most contagious variants, such as those currently distributed in the Midwest and parts of the east coast of the United States.

The Biden administration has already invested nearly $ 200 million to help increase genomic sequencing to 29,000 samples per week. With funding to be announced on Friday, states and the CDC will further increase that number and provide states with more resources to add to their own efforts and increase geographic coverage. In this way, the detection of emerging threats such as variants will be improved.

This will mean that existing and new coronavirus variants can be found faster and before they become widespread.

The announcement expected for this Friday includes:

– $ 1 billion to extend genomic sequencing. This funding will help CDCs, states and other jurisdictions improve their ability to identify coronavirus mutations and control the circulation of variants. Specifically, it will enable CDCs and jurisdictional health departments to lead, expand and improve genome sequencing and SARS-CoV-2 mutation identification activities.

– $ 400 million to support innovation initiatives, including the launch of new innovative centers of excellence in genomic epidemiology. The funding will create six centers that will function as partnerships between state health services and academic institutions, and the funding will stimulate cutting-edge research in genomic epidemiology. Partnerships could focus on developing new genomic surveillance tools to better track pathogens of public health concern, with the goal of developing surveillance methods more widely used in the public health system.

– $ 300 million build and support a national bioinformatics infrastructure. Experts use bioinformatics and complex computing to connect the dots between the spread and mutation of pathogens and help solve epidemics. This investment will support bioinformatics throughout the United States public health system, creating a unified system for sharing and analyzing sequence data in a way that protects privacy, but enables more informed decision-making. . This funding will also support training to increase sequencing in clinical settings and expand the CDC’s bioinformatics scholarship program.

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