Notice of Intent to Sole Source with MathWorks

The number of polio cases caused by wild poliovirus has decreased by more than 99.99% during the 30-year polio eradication initiative. However, continued circulation of poliovirus, including vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) in areas with inadequate surveillance, threatens eradication. In order to eliminate occurrence of polio paralysis caused by VDPVs, the World Health Organization coordinated removal of type 2 oral polio vaccine (associated with >90% of VDPV strains) from the trivalent oral polio vaccine in April 2016 and approved the emergency usage of novel oral polio vaccine (nOPV) in 2021. Accurate classification of isolates (that can be used to inform public health response, such as targeted vaccine release) is necessary when outbreaks are reported, as a first critical step to determine response scope to interrupt transmission as early as possible. To support the global polio eradication program, CDC’s Polio and Picornavirus Laboratory Branch (PPLB) has been working with MathWorks in previous years and PPLB is currently using codes developed by MathWorks. This year, PPLB would like to build additional components into the existing system to make it even more useful to staff as well as colleagues of the Polio Eradication Program. The previously successful implementation of the sequence analysis tools led to the decision to further develop them as a tool for colleagues around the world. MathWorks shall provide software/tool development services. These services will include discussion of best practices, assessing and debugging Client's MATLAB code or applications when requested or required, and general guidance in the use of MathWorks tools for application development and deployment. It may also include development of example MATLAB code, applications, graphical user interfaces (GUI), and models. Specific tasks and objectives are outlined below.