Ensuring High Quality in Mentor Mother Strategy Implementation: Helping Mothers Eliminate Pediatric HIV in Mozambique under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) | CDC RFA GH19 1903

Opportunity Information: Apply for CDC RFA GH19 1903

The grant opportunity titled "Ensuring High Quality in Mentor Mother Strategy Implementation: Helping Mothers Eliminate Pediatric HIV in Mozambique under PEPFAR" focuses on reducing mother-to-child (vertical) HIV transmission in Mozambique by strengthening and scaling a revised national "Mentor Mother" approach. The core idea behind the strategy is to formalize peer-based case management in which HIV-positive women, trained and supported as mentor mothers, provide structured psychosocial support and practical, ongoing follow-up to HIV-positive pregnant and breastfeeding women. By using peers who share similar lived experiences, the program aims to improve retention in care, adherence to antiretroviral therapy, timely clinic attendance, disclosure support where appropriate, and consistent engagement with services across pregnancy, delivery, and the breastfeeding period, all of which are key points where transmission risks can rise if services break down.

Under this opportunity, the recipient or recipients are expected to work closely with Mozambique's Ministry of Health (MOH) to take the recently revised Mentor Mother Strategy to full scale, with an emphasis on implementation quality rather than small pilot efforts. The work is designed to operate at multiple layers of the health system: national (supporting policy, guidance, tools, and coordination with the MOH PMTCT program), provincial (supporting provincial health authorities with planning, supervision, and performance monitoring), district (helping translate guidance into day-to-day service delivery and referral networks), and sub-district or facility/community levels (where mentor mothers interact directly with clients and help close gaps between households and clinics). A major expectation is that the recipient(s) provide technical assistance not only to MOH counterparts but also to provincial authorities and other PEPFAR implementing partners, so that peer case management is implemented consistently and according to the revised national standards across supported areas.

Programmatically, the scope extends beyond pregnant and breastfeeding women to include HIV-exposed infants and newly diagnosed HIV-positive children under five years of age. This reflects the continuum needed to eliminate pediatric HIV: ensuring maternal viral suppression, ensuring infants receive appropriate prophylaxis and testing at the right intervals, identifying infants and children who acquire HIV as early as possible, and rapidly linking them to pediatric treatment and follow-up. In practice, that means the mentor mother platform is positioned as a bridge across services such as antenatal care, maternity, postnatal care, child health services, and HIV treatment, with the peer case manager helping clients navigate referrals, keep appointments, and remain engaged through a period when drop-off is common.

A distinctive element of the grant is the requirement to directly support implementation at demonstration sites located in provinces and districts that have historically high levels of vertical transmission, specifically including districts in Nampula and Zambezia. These sites function as intensive learning and implementation hubs where the mentor mother strategy can be put into practice with close supervision, troubleshooting, and performance tracking. The lessons from these high-burden settings are intended to inform broader scale-up, strengthen implementation fidelity, and highlight operational solutions that can be replicated elsewhere in the country.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary funding opportunity issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through the Center for Global Health, and funded under PEPFAR. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, which typically implies substantial involvement and collaboration between the funder and the recipient during implementation, rather than a hands-off grant. The opportunity number is CDC RFA GH19-1903, associated with CFDA 93.067 (global HIV/AIDS). The award ceiling is $5,000,000, with an expectation of two awards. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any entity type, subject to clarifications in the full text). Key dates listed in the source information include a creation date of August 13, 2018 and an original application closing date of October 15, 2018, with electronic submissions due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the deadline.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control - CGH in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Ensuring High Quality in Mentor Mother Strategy Implementation: Helping Mothers Eliminate Pediatric HIV in Mozambique under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.067.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 13, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 15, 2018 Electronically submitted applications must be submitted no later than 1159 p.m., ET, on the listed application due date.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $5,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for CDC RFA GH19 1903

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