Georgia: Enhancing Early Warning Systems by using Genomic Surveillance and One Health Approach

pipeline

Georgia secured US$6.5 million in Grant funding from the Pandemic Fund, with US$1.34 million to be managed by the World Bank (WB). The WB-administered activities will complement Pandemic Fund related activities (USD$5.1 million) that will be managed by the World Health Organization (WHO).The WB supported activities, the funds (US$1.34 M) will be channeled through this Project, with implementation expected to start in the first quarter of 2026. This Project, in line with the approved proposal, aims to strengthen Georgia’s early warning and surveillance capacity in through the implementation of a One Health approach. The Project will support the efforts of the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labor, Health and Social Affairs (MoILHSA), and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture (MEPA) to strengthen both their laboratory and surveillance capacity. Specifically, it will equip the laboratories of the National Center of Disease Control (NCDC) of MoILHSA and the State Laboratory of Agriculture (SLA) of MEPA and provide both institutions with vehicles to facilitate surveillance work.The proposed Project will have two main components: Component 1: Strengthening Early Warning and Holistic Disease and Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance system based on the One Health Approach. To support NCDC, the Project will finance laboratory equipment to strengthen its capacity for microbial testing, genomic sequencing and wastewater monitoring, and two vehicles for surveillance. In addition, the Project will fund core high-tech equipment for quantitative and qualitative analysis of antibiotics in complex wastewater samples and two vehicles for the SLA.Component 2: Project Management. The Project will support institutional capacity building activities including consultants for contract management, procurement, financial management, environmental and social safeguards, monitoring and evaluation, and project audits.