Investing in Africa’s scientific future. Science 2024
Prof. Tulio de Oliveira and Dr. Cheryl Baxter discuss the need to invest in Africa scientific development and highlights capacity building activities that succeeded in the continent. Covers the Genomics Africa Fellowship, which trained over 500 fellows in advanced genomics and data analysis for pandemic response.
Africa bears a disproportionate burden of infectious diseases, accounting for a substantial percentage of global cases. Malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, cholera, Ebola, Lassa fever, and other tropical diseases, such as dengue and chikungunya, have had a profound impact on morbidity and mortality. Various factors contribute to the higher prevalence and incidence of infectious diseases in Africa, including socioeconomic challenges, limited access to health care, inadequate sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, climate-related factors, and endemicity of certain diseases in specific regions.
A skilled workforce is crucial to addressing these challenges. Unfortunately, many countries in Africa often lack the required resources, and aspiring scientists frequently seek educational and career opportunities abroad, leading to a substantial loss of talent and expertise from the continent. This talent migration, referred to as 'brain drain', exacerbates the existing training gaps and hampers the sustainability of research within Africa.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, considerable resources were invested to enable African countries to directly monitor genetic changes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) without relying on international assistance. In particular, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization, through the Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Africa PGI), invested in increasing the capacity of African countries by providing equipment, reagents, and training.
These investments resulted in an exponential increase in the number of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences produced in Africa. Remarkably, whereas it took 375 days to produce the first 10,000 African SARS-CoV-2 genomes, it took only 87 days to produce the next 10,000 and just 24 days to produce an additional 10,000. Currently, 54 African countries have the capacity to conduct genome sequencing, and these countries have collectively contributed almost 200,000 genomic sequences from Africa, with South Africa contributing about a third of the sequences.
Read More: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn4168
News date: 2024-02-01
Links:
