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CDC Donates Genomic Equipment to Noguchi Memorial Institute

 



Reported by, Nsor Paul mensah.


The Africa Centre for Diseases Control (Africa CDC) has donated three sets of Genomic equipment to Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research to help early detection of new variants and improve data in the country (Ghana).

The donation formed part of the Africa Centre for Diseases Control Pathogen Genomics Initiative, which seeks to support institutions in the continental laboratory network for SARS-CoV2 in an endeavour to adopt best practices and techniques to help sequencing locally.

The equipment included the reagents sequencing machines, Hybrid Iron ,Mini Iron, Nextseq 2000, and also support them technically  to enhance the performance of the Genomic surveillance laboratory network at the Institute.

NMIMR Director Professor Dorothy Yeboah-Manu, express her profound gratitude and appreciation to Africa CDC for the support over the period, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She emphasize that, those machines would give the Institute  capacity to sequence 2000 genomes in a week.

Prof Yeboah-Manu review that the Africa CDC during the pandemic aided all the genomic sequencing that was carried out at Noguchi for the COVID viruses.

She further explained that with the capacity that Africa CDC had built at Noguchi, it is considered one of the best sequencing hubs and was responsible for Ghana, Togo, Benin, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

"In addition to that, we have also been able to facilitate training of seven Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries, plus Mauritius, with funding from the World Health Organization," 

She added that, “this would further build capacity within the West Africa continent instead of relying on other countries for genomic surveillance" she stated.

The NMIMR Director explain that the COVID-19 pandemic made people appreciate the various variants, and the mutations among others, and as such what was required now was a continuous survey for the emergence of new variants and the machines would assist in that regard.

She emphasize that even though Ghanaians had been advised to take COVID-19 vaccination seriously, they would continue to monitor for new variants with the help of the machines for proper analysis to inform decision making.

 The Programme Lead for Pathogen Genomics,Dr Sofonias Tessema, handing over the equipment, said the equipment would strengthen the capacity of Ghana to be able to identify variants, monitor the circulation of variants and understand how the virus is evolving.

He said the support to Ghana was for the region and the continent at large to increase the overall capacity to generate effective data for decision making.

Dr Tessema concluded by saying that, the detection of variants is very critical to determine the efficacy of vaccines, whether the vaccine is working or not.





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