Advanced Molecular Detection : Puerto Rico

Total state and local investment: $6,611,665Puerto Rico is part of the Southeast region. In 2018, the AMD program established seven workforce development regions across the country. Each region has an AMD training lead and a bioinformatics lead. This provides a network of customized AMD support which helps develop skills and provides training assistance to public health labs across the country.Through the Southeast region\u2019s training resources, Puerto Rico receives lab support on data analysis and how tointerface with IT departments. They also receive both pathogen-specific training and cross-cutting instruction to help staff develop the critical skills necessary to extract, analyze, and interpret sequencing data.CDC\u2019s Advanced Molecular Detection (AMD) program builds and integrates laboratory, bioinformatics, and epidemiology technologies across CDC and nationwide. Since 2014, AMD has received support from Congress through a $30 million per year appropriation to implement these technologies in public health programs. Through investments in AMD technologies, CDC is improving both public health outcomes and preparedness in dozens of areas including foodborne disease, influenza, antibiotic resistance, hepatitis, pneumonia, and meningitis.With funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the AMD program has developed a multi-year plan to expand its support to state, local, and territorial public health laboratories with more staff and resources to collect specimens for COVID-19 testing, sequence them to identify and track SARS-CoV-2 variants, and share data, now and future years.PR-amd-investment-H.pd