Samuel Oyola, senior scientist and head of genomics at Nairobi’s International Livestock Research Institute, near a vat used for long-term storage of specimen samples. Photo by: Sara Jerving / Devex
By Sara Jerving
On a recent afternoon in Nairobi, Kenya, about two dozen scientists gathered, peering at a screen that to the untrained eye looked like gibberish — rows of letters but no coherent words.
The scientists were attending a training to advance skills in the analysis of genomic sequences — a process where the genetic code of an organism is turned into data which reveals information about its characteristics. It’s an important technique in public health to determine what pathogen is inflicting a community and whether it’s mutating.
Oyola looking at equipment used for genomic sequencing. Photo by: Sara Jerving / Devex
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only seven African countries had national laboratories equipped to do this. But the need to identify new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 forced laboratories to ramp up this expertise in an unprecedented way.
During the first year of the pandemic, the Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative was launched as a partnership to close gaps in genomics capacity. As part of that partnership, over the past two years, American biotechnology company Illumina donated over $9 million in sequencing systems, reagents, and training to the continent.
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Equipment used for genomic sequencing. Photo by: Sara Jerving / Devex
Oyola near a refrigerator full of reagents that are used in the genomic sequencing process. Photo by: Sara Jerving / Devex
