Genomic Surveillance and Characterization of Microbial Threats Facilitates Early Detection and Containment of Disease Outbreaks in West Africa
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Christian Happi, Ph.D.
Professor, Redeemer's University Redemption City, Nigeria
Redeemer's University Redemption City, Nigeria
I have the expertise and skills, leadership and motivation necessary to successfully conduct and oversee health research projects in West Africa. I have a broad background in molecular biology and genomics with application in infectious diseases, including malaria, Lassa fever, Ebola virus disease and HIV. Of my career accomplishments to date, the most meaningful was my use of genomics technologies for early diagnosis and confirmation (within 6 hours) of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Nigeria. This singular action was major in containing EVD in Nigeria, and therefore saving millions of lives in Africa. This feat could only be achieved after I took the decision to go to Nigeria – the country in world with the highest burden of malaria, as well as a viral hemorrhagic disease called Lassa fever – to live and work in the midst of malaria and Lassa fever patients, after years of research and work at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. I saw this decision as the realization of a mission to apply the genomics knowledge and cutting-edge genomics skills I had acquired at Harvard University to improve health care in Africa, and to share these skills with young African researchers so that key genomics research questions can be addressed in the natural setting where the disease occurs. I pioneered and rooted in Nigeria, North-South and South-South collaborations to make major breakthroughs in malaria, Lassa fever and Ebola Virus disease. With funding from the World Bank and the NIH, along with collaborators we established at Redeemer’s University, Nigeria, the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID, www.acegid.org) in 2013.
Summary
Recent viral outbreaks in many areas of the World is an important reminder of the difficulties of predicting when and where the next outbreak will occur. These also highlight the need to greatly expand our ability to rapidly identify and stop these threats. The 2013-16 Ebola outbreak took many months to detect, and it expanded in part due to the lack of local diagnosis. Similarly, despite regular disease outbreaks by known agents in many places in the world, many more viruses (known and unknown) are cryptically circulating and undetected. Infectious diseases are often characterized by fever, and are among the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in tropical developing countries. They have devastating burden on the African continent, because differentiating the causative agents of fevers are challenging. Advances in genomic technologies have revolutionized biomedical research, and created the potential to transform the clinical care, surveillance, and understanding of infectious diseases. Researchers at the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), Redeemer’s university, Ede, Nigeria, are translating microbial genomics knowledge and technologies into new field deployable diagnostics tools that can rapidly test for a wide array of known and novel microbes simultaneously. These tools are helping local health workers to perform diagnosis and treatment of patients by the patients’ bedsides and prevent outbreaks from escalating. These new developments lay the groundwork to pursue key scientific questions about the pathophysiology, epidemiology, transmission, evolution, and biology of the microbes causing disease. In this presentation, we provide insights into how we are using new genomic knowledge and technologies to: 1) build Africa capacity and leadership toward preparedness and containment of future infectious diseases outbreaks; 2) promote state-of-the-art genome sequencing and field-deployable genetic tools for microbial infections detection in West Africa, and 3) enable a surveillance network for some of the world’s greatest global health threats.
Learning Objectives:
- Highlights how genomic surveillance provides a powerful tool for early detection for outbreaks and pandemics.
- Promotes the application of cutting-edge genomic tools by home-grown scientists in creating solutions for perennial local problems in resource-poor settings.
Exposes the frontiers of un-met needs in emergency preparedness especially in the context of infectious disease surveillance and global infectious disease threats.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, August 28, 2024