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IOL News
01-07-2025
- Health
- IOL News
Cape Town launches new phase of the Genomic Surveillance Project
The launch event at the CERI Headquarters on Stellenbosch University's Tygerberg Campus included a tour of laboratories, a panel discussion and a grant award ceremony attended by senior officials and dignitaries. Image: Stellenbosch University Cape Town witnessed a significant step forward in public health as the new phase of the Genomic Surveillance Project was officially launched. A collaboration between the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) at Stellenbosch University and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), this initiative aims to upscale the monitoring and analysis of genetic information from pathogens that pose a threat to public health. The project is part of the GIZ SAVax Programme, co-funded by the German Government, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the European Union (EU). The launch represents a concerted effort to strengthen local vaccine and pharmaceutical manufacturing in Africa, contributing to the Team Europe Initiative on manufacturing and access to vaccines, medicines, and health technologies (MAV+). The enhanced funding of R9 million marks an important milestone, bringing the total investment in this partnership to R12 million. This investment will bolster genomics surveillance, particularly targeting important pathogens, including respiratory threats such as Avian Influenza H5N1 and emerging coronaviruses. "This partnership exemplifies how science, government, and international cooperation can come together to strengthen public health systems and respond more effectively to epidemic threats,' said Professor Tulio de Oliveira, Director of CERI. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading The new phase of the Genomic Surveillance Project will build on existing progress with additional funding of R9 million, bringing total investment in the partnership to R12 million. Image: Stellenbosch University The launch event at the CERI Headquarters on Stellenbosch University's Tygerberg Campus featured a tour of laboratories, a panel discussion, and a grant award ceremony attended by senior officials and dignitaries. Mr. Fulgencio Garrido Ruiz, EU Deputy Ambassador to South Africa, expressed the importance of this collaboration: 'We are delighted to expand the collaboration with South Africa, especially as it plays a strategic role within the Team Europe Initiative MAV+.' The EU's MAV+ initiative has mobilised significant resources, including over €700 million for pandemic preparedness across the region, with €10 million directed specifically towards research infrastructure in South Africa. Garrido underlined the vision of enhancing self-sufficiency through local research frameworks to empower nations to independently tackle health crises. The emphasis on the collaborative aspect of health security was echoed by Sven Hartwig, Deputy Consul General of the German Consulate General, who stated, 'This launch highlights that surveillance for pandemic preparedness relies on partnership and collaboration between the public and private sectors, academia, and civil society.' Dr. Anban Pillay from the National Department of Health highlighted the cultural shift towards cooperation fostered by CERI and Stellenbosch University. Claudia Aguirre, head of the GIZ SAVax programme, remarked on the programme's role in bolstering capacity building and supporting African scientists in finding solutions tailored to the continent's unique health challenges. In the first phase of the CERI project, running from 2023-2024, over 1,000 pathogen genomes were sequenced, and more than 50 African scientists trained in genomic techniques. The second phase (2025-2026) will expand genomic surveillance efforts and promote the integration of data crucial for shaping public health policies. As South Africa takes on a pivotal role in global biosecurity, it becomes the second Southern Hemisphere nation, post-Australia, to provide real-time genomic tracking for winter disease pathogens Additionally, the project aims to strengthen laboratory infrastructure in under-resourced provinces while focusing on developing the careers of scientists from Historically Disadvantaged Universities.
eNCA
29-05-2025
- Health
- eNCA
New strain raises global concerns
JOHANNESBURG - It's been more than five years since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic. And, as we head into the cold winter months, a new variant is causing concern in China, where it's led to an increase in hospitalisations. The World Health Organisation has designated this new strain, NB.1.8.1, as a 'variant under monitoring'. Is there cause for concern? Prof Tulio de Oliveira, director at the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation, said this variant is part of the omicron family. "It is identified as a variant, and we are monitoring this is the lowest level we have on the WHO," he said.
The Independent
02-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Why Africa's deadly cholera crisis is worse than ever
Extreme weather events, including tropical storms, floods, and drought, have ravaged parts of Africa over the past three years, leading to widespread hunger and displacement. These events have also left a deadly consequence: a surge in cholera outbreaks. Since late 2021, over 6,000 lives have been lost, and nearly 350,000 cases reported across southern and East Africa. Malawi and Zambia are experiencing their worst outbreaks on record, while Zimbabwe has endured multiple waves. Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia have also been significantly impacted. These nations have all faced floods, droughts, or in some instances, both. Health authorities, scientists, and aid agencies now recognise this unprecedented rise in cholera as another example of how extreme weather fuels disease outbreaks. Tulio de Oliveira, a South Africa-based scientist specialising in diseases in developing nations, said: "The outbreaks are getting much larger because the extreme climate events are getting much more common." Mr De Oliveira, who led the team that identified new coronavirus variants during the Covid-19 pandemic, said that southern Africa's recent outbreaks can be linked to the cyclones and floods that struck Malawi in late 2021 and early 2022. These events spread cholera bacteria to new areas, exacerbating the crisis. Zimbabwe and Zambia have seen cases rise as they wrestle with severe droughts and people rely on less safe sources of water in their desperation like boreholes, shallow wells and rivers, which can all be contaminated. Days after the deadly flooding in Kenya and other parts of East Africa this month, cholera cases appeared. The World Health Organization calls cholera a disease of poverty, as it thrives where there is poor sanitation and a lack of clean water. Africa has had eight times as many deaths this year as the Middle East, the second-most affected region. Historically vulnerable, Africa is even more at risk as it faces the worst impacts of climate change as well as the effect of the El Niño weather phenomenon, health experts say. In what's become a perfect storm, there's also a global shortage of cholera vaccines, which are needed only in poorer countries. 'It doesn't affect countries with resources,' said Dr Daniela Garone, the international medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF. 'So, it doesn't bring the resources.' Billions of dollars have been invested into other diseases that predominantly affect the world's most vulnerable, like polio and tuberculosis, largely because those diseases are highly contagious and could cause outbreaks even in rich countries. But that's not the case with cholera, where epidemics remain contained. WHO said this month there is a 'critical shortage' of oral cholera vaccines in the global stockpile. Since the start of 2023, 15 countries — the desperate few — have requested a total of 82 million doses to deal with deadly outbreaks while only 46 million doses were available. There are just 3.2 million doses left, below the target of having at least 5 million in reserve. While there are currently cholera epidemics in the Middle East, the Americas and Southeast Asia, Africa is by far the worst-affected region. Vaccines alliance GAVI and UNICEF said last month that the approval of a new cholera vaccine would boost stocks. But the result of the shortage has already been measured in deaths. Lilanda, a township on the edge of the Zambian capital of Lusaka, is a typical cholera hot spot. Stagnant pools of water dot the dirt roads. Clean water is like gold dust. Here, over two awful days in January, Mildred Banda saw her one-year-old son die from cholera and rushed to save the life of her teenage daughter. Cholera shouldn't be killing anyone. The disease is easily treated and easily prevented — and the vaccines are relatively simple to produce. That didn't help Ms Banda's son, Ndanji. When he fell sick with diarrhoea, he was treated with an oral rehydration solution at a clinic and released. He slipped back into dehydration that night at home. Ms Banda feels terrible guilt. 'I should have noticed earlier that my son was not feeling well,' she said, sitting in her tiny concrete house. 'I should have acted faster and taken him back to the clinic. I should have taken him back to save his life.' Because of the vaccine shortage, Zambia couldn't undertake a preventative vaccination campaign after neighboring Malawi's outbreak. That should have been a warning call, said Dr de Oliveira. Zambia only made an emergency request when its cases started mounting. The doses that might have saved Ndanji started arriving in mid-January. He died on January 6. In Zimbabwe, a drought worsened by El Niño has seen cholera take hold in distant rural areas as well as its traditional hot spots of crowded urban neighborhoods. Abi Kebra Belaye, MSF representative for Zimbabwe, said the southern African nation normally has around 17 hard-hit areas, mostly urban. This year, cholera spread to 62 districts as the struggle to find water heightened the risk. 'This part of Africa is paying the highest price of climate change,' Ms Kebra Belaye said. Augustine Chonyera, who hails from a cholera-prone part of the capital, Harare, was shocked when he recently visited the sparsely populated rural district of Buhera. He said he heard grim tales of the impact of the disease: a family losing five members, a husband and wife dying within hours of each other and local businesses using delivery trucks to take the sick to a clinic several kilometers (miles) away. 'It seems now the people in rural areas are in more danger than us. I still wonder how it happened,' Mr Chonyera said. He said he returned home as soon as he could — after giving a large bottle of treated water he had brought with him to an elderly woman.
