Department of Health and Human Services August 28, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Under the provisions of Section 3507(a)(1)(D) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request for review and approval of the information collection listed below. This proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register in Volume 79, June 12, 2014 on page 33764 and allowed 60-days for public comment. One public comment was received that was a personal opinion regarding conducting research about the Chinese blood donation system. The purpose of this notice is to allow an additional 30 days for public comment. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection that has been extended, revised, or implemented on or after October 1, 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Direct Comments to OMB: Written comments and/or suggestions regarding the item(s) contained in this notice, especially regarding the estimated public burden and associated response time, should be directed to the: Office of Management and Budget, Office of Regulatory Affairs, OIRAsubmission@omb.eop.gov or by fax to 202-395-6974, Attention: NIH Desk Officer. Comment Due Date: Comments regarding this information collection are best assured of having their full effect if received within 30-days of the date of this publication. For Further Information: To obtain a copy of the data collection plans and instruments or request more information on the proposed project contact: Simone Glynn, MD, Project Officer/ICD Contact, Two Rockledge Center, Suite 9142, 6701 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892, or call 301-435-0065, or Email your request, including your address to: glynnsa@nhlbi.nih.gov. Formal requests for additional plans and instruments must be requested in writing. Proposed Collection: HIV Study in Blood Donors from Five Chinese Regions, 0925-0596 reinstatement with change, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Need and Use of Information Collection: This Study is a reinstatement with change of OMB Number: 0925-0596 expiration date, January 31, 2012. To better understand the diversifying and changing Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) epidemic, and contemporary HIV risk factors, especially those associated with recent HIV infections, this HIV risk factor study in China is proposed as part of the Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study-III (REDS-III). The major objectives of the study will be to evaluate the proportion of blood donors in China who test positive for HIV and have acquired their infection recently or more remotely; the risk of releasing a blood product that contains HIV (HIV residual risk); and the risk factors associated with HIV infection in China. The study will also assess the frequency of distinct HIV-1 viral lineages and drug resistant mutations among HIV-positive blood donors. In 2011, there were 780,000 people infected with HIV in China and it is estimated that over 300,000 HIV infected people in China are not aware of their infection status. The large migrating population and the complexity of HIV transmission routes in China make it difficult to implement a comprehensive and effective national HIV control strategy. Risk factors for infections can change over time; thus, identifying factors that contribute to the recent spread of HIV in a broad cross-section of an otherwise unselected general population, such as blood donors, is highly important for obtaining a complete picture of the epidemiology of HIV infection in China. Because the pace of globalization means infections can cross borders easily, the study objectives have direct relevance for HIV control in the US and globally. Recent years have seen an increase in blood donations from repeat donors in most Chinese regions. This increase permits longer-term follow-up and testing of repeat donors which allow for calculation of new HIV infection rates and residual risks. The HIV data, for both recently and remotely acquired infections, from the proposed study will complement existing data on HIV risks obtained from general and high risk populations to provide comprehensive HIV surveillance data for China. This study will also monitor genetic characteristics of recently acquired infections through genotyping and drug resistance testing, thus serving a US and global public health imperative to monitor the genotypes of HIV that have recently been transmitted. For HIV, the additional monitoring of drug resistance patterns in newly acquired infection is critical to determine if currently available antiretroviral medicines are capable of combating infection. Genotyping and host response information are scientifically important not only to China, but to the US and other nations since they provide a broader global understanding of how to most effectively manage and potentially prevent HIV, for example through vaccine development. Efforts to develop vaccines funded by the National Institutes of Health and other US-based organizations may directly benefit from the findings of this study. Blood donors are tested for transfusion-transmissible infections including HIV when they present to donate, and test result information as well as demographic data will be routinely collected in a database at the five blood centers participating in REDS-III studies (located in the cities of Chongqing, Liuzhou, Luoyang, Mianyang, and Urumqi). These data will allow for calculation of HIV incidence, prevalence, and residual risk. Additionally, a case-control study will be conducted over a 2 and \1/2\ year period to evaluate the risk factors associated with HIV infection among blood donors. Cases will be defined as potential donors who deny risks on the donor screening questionnaire but are found to be positive on HIV testing (their donation is discarded), HIV-positive donors who gave blood at one of the five blood centers as stated above (primary sites) or at blood centers located in the Guangxi Autonomous Region (peripheral sites, recruited through the Guangxi CDC for this study only but not other REDS-III studies) will be eligible to participate and complete a Risk Factor Questionnaire that will assess general demographic and risk factor information pertinent to HIV infection. Controls will be negative for HIV on confirmatory testing. Assuming 50% response rate, it is anticipated that 390 HIV- positive donors and 960 controls will participate in the case control study. The results of this study will contribute to global HIV surveillance and prevention, provide a broader global understanding of HIV epidemiology, and support public health efforts to most effectively manage and potentially prevent HIV transmission both worldwide and in the US. OMB approval is requested for 3 years. There are no costs to respondents other than their time. The total estimated burden hours are 450.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing the availability of a document entitled ``Guidance for Industry: Recommendations for Screening, Testing, and Management of Blood Donors and Blood and Blood Components Based on Screening Tests for Syphilis,'' dated September 2014. The guidance document provides recommendations for screening and testing of donors and management of donations based on screening tests for syphilis. The guidance is intended for blood establishments that collect Whole Blood or blood components, including Source Plasma. The guidance announced in this notice finalizes the draft guidance of the same title, dated March 2013 (2013 draft guidance), and supersedes the memorandum of December 12, 1991, entitled ``Clarification of FDA Recommendations for Donor Deferral and Product Distribution Based on the Results of Syphilis Testing.''

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) located within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launches a challenge competition for the development of a method or process to accurately and efficiently identify, subtype, and characterize pathogenic microorganisms directly from clinical or environmental samples without the need for culture or culture-based enrichment. Laboratory-based infectious disease surveillance programs, such as PulseNet, the National Tuberculosis Surveillance System, and the Active Bacterial Core Surveillance program, rely on primary culture and microbiologic testing in community hospital and clinical laboratories. A new generation of non-culture-based diagnostic tests are now beginning to enter the marketplace offering physicians faster results and, in some cases, more types of information than were previously available. Unfortunately, these new tests do not typically result in isolates being available for public health purposes, and, as their use continues to grow, it will likely become increasingly difficult or impossible to detect and investigate outbreaks or other important infectious disease trends. New laboratory approaches that do not depend on isolates or culture for subtyping and characterization of microbes are needed to maintain and improve important public health activities across a range of pathogenic organisms. The Culture-Independent Straintyping and Characterization Challenge is an opportunity to develop novel approaches to identifying and characterizing pathogens similar to normal flora in a complex matrix in a process that does not require any culture, including pre-enrichment. Straintyping and characterization of the Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) from clinical stool samples represents a significant challenge and has been selected as the target organism for this challenge. STEC are similar in most respects to the commensal E. coli that are carried in the intestinal tract of nearly everyone. Consistent identification, straintyping, and characterization of pathogenic STEC directly from a complex matrix, such as stool, requires the consistent identification of both a variable marker that can be used for subtyping and a second, more stable marker that can be used for definitive identification.

This notice announces the intention of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to request that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve the proposed information collection project: ``Voluntary Customer Survey Generic Clearance for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.'' In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501-3520, AHRQ invites the public to comment on this proposed information collection. This proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register on May 29th 2014 and allowed 60 days for public comment. No comments were received. The purpose of this notice is to allow an additional 30 days for public comment.

In compliance with section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Office of the Secretary (OS), Department of Health and Human Services, announces plans to submit a new Information Collection Request (ICR), described below; to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Prior to submitting that ICR to OMB, OS seeks comments from the public regarding the burden estimate, below, or any other aspect of the ICR.