Under Contract

• The Bureau for Global Health is spending more than $12.1 million to help organizations in developing countries implement pediatric eye care programs. The program aims to “expand the delivery of quality eye care services to vulnerable children and other populations,” primarily in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Partners for Global Research and Development won the five-year contract. 

• The Department of the Army is contracting with Dogs for Defense to provide two working dogs and handlers to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, an Army training center. One dog should specialize in explosive detection, clearing “designated buildings, vehicles, suspicious packages and persons.” The other dog will be used to detect narcotics, including marijuana, opiates, heroine, cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy. The Army’s contract costs $53,100 and lasts for one year, with the option to extend.

• The National Institutes of Health will spend as much as $70 million to research treatment, prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections. On Tuesday, the agency awarded three contracts for clinical trials and studies. The recipients were Clinical Research Management in Ohio, Social & Scientific Systems in Maryland and the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will spend a maximum of $2 million to charter large boats off the Southeast Atlantic coast, in the Gulf of Mexico and around the U.S. Virgin Islands and U.S. Caribbean. Researchers will be conducting “intensive scuba operations” to research coral reef habitats to evaluate the health of the sea life populations and “provide science-based guidance to ensure long-term sustainability of these fishery resources.” Overfishing has decimated several types of fish located in these regions, NOAA says. Spree Expeditions Inc., located in Texas, won the contract.

• The U.S. Agency for International Development will spend $24.8 million over five years to promote a stronger primary healthcare system in Madagascar in order to bring the country in line with United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Madagascar is one of eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, out of 49, to be on the path to its goal for decreasing child deaths. On Monday, Management Sciences for Health, a Massachusetts-based company, won the award.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded a $26,000 contract to PLAS-TECH, a fiberglass fabrication company, to paint the bottom of four pools used to house Hawaiian monk seals. The NOAA Inouye Regional Center on Ford Island, Honolulu, researches the endangered animals and needs to change the color of the temporary holding tanks from blue to a less-reflective gray.

Contract information compiled from General Services Administration data and government press releases. Send announcements about government contracts to mwilson@digital-staging.thehill.com.