The ‘Beyond COVID-19: Pathogen Genomics and Bioinformatics for Health Security in Africa’ symposium held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia afforded hosts, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) the opportunity to reflect on progress made in rolling out capacity in pathogen genomics in Africa.
Taking place in the Nelson Mandela Conference Hall of the African Union (AU) Headquarters from 29 November to 1 December, the event drew over 120 delegates from 50 AU Member States.
At the symposium, it quickly became clear from the first session, that the first three years of the Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Africa PGI) has been a resounding success. That point was repeatedly made by programme lead, Dr Sofonias Tessema, and other delegates throughout the day.
In his opening, Dr Tessema drew attention to the establishment of critical networks, the provision of training and technology to Member States, and the overall boosting of COVID-19 sequencing capacity in Africa.
This growth in capacity was echoed in country overviews by representatives from Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Mauritius and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Speakers outlined how they are now using the lessons learnt over the past years to frame surveillance work related to other communicable diseases, including malaria, dengue fever, Ebola, and even veterinary diseases.
But as countries and Africa CDC shift their focus beyond COVID-19 to such locally relevant outbreaks, the shortcomings in public health systems, as highlighted by the pandemic, need to be addressed. “The question is how do we build on the momentum of what we’ve achieved so far,” asked Dr Tessema.
Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, acting director general of Africa CDC, urged delegates of Member States to “keep the pioneering spirit alive” that over the past three years fuelled the deployment and use of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. In so doing, it has dramatically improved disease surveillance and the management of outbreaks on the continent, he said.
“This pioneering spirit was there even before COVID-19, because work to considerably improve pathogen genomics on the continent already started in 2019,” added Dr Ouma. “Let’s now go beyond the pandemic, to further improve public health. We’re confident that we can do even bigger things.”
The ambitious dream, he said, is to have next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies in public health labs of all African Union member states by 2023. Before COVID-19, NGS was only available in public labs of 7 AU member states. Today such technologies are available in 31 African countries, with a further half dozen countries also being assisted.
Africa had only contributed sequencing of a few thousand SARS-CoV-2 genomes in 2020, explained Dr Tessema. By August 2022, 123,000 genome sequences had been done on specimens from 53 member states.
But so much more is possible, speakers agreed.
“Together we can do a lot to support global health within our region,” summed up Dr Dorothy Yeboah-Manu, director of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Ghana.
