WACCBIP COVID-19 Sequencing Team Co-Authors of Latest High Impact Paper on Pandemic in Africa

Researchers from the West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), University of Ghana contributed as co-authors of the latest research paper on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Africa published in one of the most prestigious impact journals.

The article titled “A year of genomic surveillance reveals how the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic unfolded in Africa”, Was accepted for immediate publication and subsequently published in Science, the American Association for Advancement of science (AAAS) Journal Thursday, September 09, 2021, at exactly 2 p.m. ET. The scientists are Professor Gordon Awandare, director of WACCBIP; Dr Peter Kojo Quashie -Virologist and Principal Investigator at WACCBIP; Dr Yaw Bediako – Immunologist and associate researcher at WACCBIP; Ms. Joyce Mwongeli Ngoi – Head of Next Generation Sequencing at WACCBIP; M. Collins M. Morang’a and M. Dominic Amuzu – both final year doctoral students and bioinformaticians at WACCBIP; and Professor William Ampofo of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research.

Other Ghanaian scientists who contributed to the work came from the Allied Health Sciences University (UHAS).

WACCBIP provided important sequencing data to the article, which describes the genomic distribution, patterns and possible control of SARS-CoV-2 using a dataset of 8,746 genomes from 33 African countries. and two overseas territories. The study shows that the epidemics in most countries were triggered by imports mainly from Europe; and decreased following the early introduction of restrictions on international travel.

However, as the pandemic progressed, ongoing transmissions in many countries and increased mobility resulted in the emergence and spread of many worrisome variants such as Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B. 1.351) and Eta (B. 1.525). It also distinguishes the variants originating and widespread in African countries from those which were mainly imported from European countries.

This work is important because it was the first multi-country and multi-center study of this type in Africa. It demonstrates the strength of African scientists working together. The resulting collaboration is still ongoing. Scientists meet online weekly for workshops and scientific discussions in a forum called the African COVID-19 Genomics Meeting.

WACCBIP continues to pursue high quality research, including COVID-19 research. This includes nationwide seroprevalence studies, genomic sequencing (follow-up variants), and immunology and vaccine studies.

WACCBIPS ‘contribution to this work was funded by the DELTAS (Wellcome / African Academy of Sciences Developing Excellence in Leadership Training and Science) grant; The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is funding, with UK support from the UK government, a global health research group for genomic malaria surveillance in West Africa (Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK ) and a Global Infection Control Research Unit for the Benefit of Africa (TIBA Partnership, University of Edinburgh) and the African Centers of Excellence grant from the World Bank. Dr Bediako and Dr Quashie are supported by scholarships from the Crick African Network (CAN).