Awards

Mukhlid Yousif of Wits Health Consortium (Pty) Limited in South Africa will sequence SARS-CoV-2 in sewage samples collected periodically from 40 wastewater treatment facilities across South Africa for the early detection of potentially dangerous variants to inform public health policies. Genome sequencing using sewage samples can monitor the molecular epidemiology and diversity of circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, and also identify new variants even before they can be detected in the clinic. They will collect a total of 528 wastewater samples over a twelve-month period and process them for sequencing to identify novel mutations or mutations that are unique to variants-of-concern, especially those not yet reported in Africa. They will also compare these data with sequences of SARS-CoV-2 variants from local COVID-19 patients to support interpretation of wastewater sequencing results. Results will be immediately published online and communicated to provincial and national COVID incident management teams.

Francine Ntoumi of the Fondation Congolaise pour la Recherche Medicale in the Republic of Congo will set-up a national SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance system by increasing sequencing capacity to monitor viral variants-of-concern and determine the impact of vaccines on disease transmission to inform public health decisions. They will perform a cohort study by collecting oropharyngeal samples from patients at COVID-19 testing centers in the two largest cities, which account for 80% of the country’s new infections, and sequence around 60 SARS-CoV-2-positive samples per month to determine the prevalence of variants. These will be combined with existing COVID-19 epidemiological and clinical data to determine the virulence, transmissibility, and symptoms associated with new and existing viral variants-of-concern. They will also analyze blood samples from vaccinated and unvaccinated COVID-19 patients to evaluate their immune responses and combine these with socio-demographic and clinical data to determine vaccine effectiveness.

Richard Njouom from the Centre Pasteur du Cameroun in Cameroon will establish a genomic surveillance network across the country to routinely track circulating SARS CoV-2 strains and identify novel variants for informing health authorities. They will use an existing national network of six COVID-19 molecular testing laboratories for collecting samples. Around 1,200 samples will be screened using a commercial SARS-CoV-2 mutation panel over the course of 12 months to identify existing viral variants-of-concern and variants-of-interest. They will also set up a sequencing platform to sequence the spike protein of the virus to identify new variants, as well as for generating 240 whole SARS CoV-2 genome sequences to monitor viral evolution and identify markers of disease severity or increased transmissibility. Policy briefs will be used to inform the health authorities of circulating variants.

Fitsum Girma Tadesse of the Armauer Hansen Research Institute in Ethiopia will establish the Ethiopian Malaria Genomic Epidemiology Network (EMAGEN) by bringing together key public health, biomedical, and biotechnology institutions in Ethiopia to build malaria molecular surveillance capacity and renew elimination efforts. Eliminating malaria requires an urgent shift to more quantitative methods that can more accurately and rapidly track disease transmission and drug resistance, and better target interventions. They will develop a framework for building capacity and integrating it into the national malaria control and elimination strategy, produce next generation sequencing and bioinformatics protocols that will be used to monitor anti-malaria drug resistance, and train personnel in genomics and bioinformatics. They will also develop a simple, interactive web interface to effectively communicate results to diverse stakeholders.

Sikhulile Moyo of the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute will expand the country’s genomic surveillance capacity to identify circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants and track their transmission routes and dynamics to inform the public pandemic response. Botswana has one of the highest global burdens of HIV and the associated immunosuppression may prolong SARS CoV-2 replication thereby increasing the probability of viral mutation and emergence of new variants. However, there is insufficient sequencing capacity to track these variants. They will increase national capacity by improving infrastructure, optimizing workflows, and providing training, as well as establishing a sampling framework and surveillance strategy. This will enable the temporal and spatial monitoring of circulating SARS-CoV-2 viral lineages across Botswana. They will also identify any associations between circulating viral variants and HIV infection, and study the risk of infection to specific SARS-CoV-2 variants among vaccinated people.

Atsbeha Gebreegziabxier Weldemariam of the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) together with colleagues at the Armauer Hansen Research Institute, both in Ethiopia, will boost the country’s sequencing capacity to establish routine SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance and monitor the emergence and impact of new variants to better inform public policy. Over 1,000 SARS-CoV-2 positive samples will be collected across 14 hospitals and laboratories over a period of ten months and subjected to next generation sequencing and bioinformatics analyses to identify any new variants. They will then test the efficacy of existing diagnostic assays for detecting these different variants. New genomic data will be promptly uploaded to public repositories, and a web-based platform will be developed to rapidly communicate research findings to relevant stakeholders, including the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, so that results can be readily translated into public health policy.

Iruka Okeke of the University of Ibadan in Nigeria will use academic sequencing resources to expand the genomic surveillance framework of Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control for the rapid detection of newly-evolved or imported viral variants to inform national vaccination strategies. Nigeria’s SARS-CoV-2 sequencing needs currently surpass its capacity. To address this, they will repurpose existing academic sequencing and bioinformatics resources and expertise for SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance, and share the data with the national and global communities in near real-time. They will also pilot an approach to more efficiently monitor the existence and spread of viral variants and viral breakthrough strains by sequencing SARS-CoV-2 positive samples from around 180 health workers, who have greater exposure and better access to vaccines.