Less than a decade ago- most if not all- of Nigeria’s viral sequencing was conducted in laboratories abroad. Fast forward to February 2020 when a team lead by Dr. Christian Happi analyzed the first Sub-Saharan case of coronavirus, and, within 48 hours shared the first genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 in Africa with the global scientific community.
Dr. Happi is the director of the Africa Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) which is rapidly growing the field of genomics in Africa. Years of scientific capacity building in Africa have generated several world-class research programs, such as ACEGID, which are responding to the current coronavirus pandemic and leading response efforts to prevent future infectious disease outbreaks. Please read more here.