Coronavirus: Ghana scientists obtain 'critical information' about virus

12 Avril 2020

Accra, Ghana, April 12 (Infosplusgabon) - Scientists at the University of Ghana in Accra say they have obtained "critical information" about the virus responsible for the global COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic that will enable tracing of community infections in people that did not come into contact with confirmed cases.

The scientists, who work at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) and the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) of the University analysed samples from selected cases to gain a comprehensive understanding of the variations of the virus that are present in Ghana, a press release issued by the University said on Saturday.

“The successful establishment of this sequencing capability at University of Ghana is a significant milestone in Ghana‘s response to the pandemic, as it will strengthen surveillance for tracking mutations of the virus and aid in the tracing of the sources of community infections in people with no known contact with confirmed cases,” Prof. Abraham Anang, Director of NMIMR said.

Nine samples were analysed from travellers who arrived in Ghana from the UK, Norway, Hungary, India and United States.

“The data tell us that, while there were some differences between the strains from the various countries, all the 15 genomes generally resembled (with >92% similarity) the reference strain that was isolated in the Wuhan Province of China, where the outbreak began,” Prof. Gordon Awandare, Director of WACCBIP said.

“This confirms that we are dealing with the same pathogen, and that it has not yet changed its genetic make-up significantly. It is natural that pathogens will evolve as they encounter different environmental challenges, so we will need to continue monitoring to keep track with these changes and determine how they impact on the efficacy of potential drugs or vaccines that are being developed,” he added.

The statement said in line with global open-access practices, the sequence data have been deposited in the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database, where all other sequences from around the world have been stored.

“The University of Ghana is proud to note that this feat was achieved entirely by local scientists using established local capacity including our Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Core and High-Performance Computing system (HPC aka Zuputu), which are jointly managed by NMIMR and WACCBIP, with support from University of Ghana Computing Systems.

Ghana has 408 confirmed cases with eight deaths.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/MIT/GABON2020

© Copyright  Infosplusgabon