Guest: Prof. Tulio de Oliveira, director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Plaform (KRISP). Prof. de Oliveira is a Professor of Bioinformatics at the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, Stellenbosch University and at the College of Health Sciences at UKZN

The rapid expansion of genomics surveillance in Africa allowed the continent to describe the introduction and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 variants in African countries during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A major scientific report from Africa featured in the journal Science shows how the large investment, collaboration and capacity building in genomic surveillance on the African continent enabled realtime public health response.

The report includes more than 300 authors from Africa and abroad who worked together to describe and analyse over 100 000 genomes and characterise SARS-CoV-2 variants in real time. This was the largest consortium of African scientists and public health institutions ever to work together to support data-driven Covid-19 response in Africa.