Africa must not be left behind in the global response to Covid-19 and vaccination rollouts, lest the continent becomes a breeding ground for new variants.
This is the stern warning from African scientists and public health specialists, who have been conducting genomic surveillance on the continent since the arrival of the coronavirus early in 2020.
This is due to its fragile health and scientific infrastructure, lack of technology, weak purchasing power, “and the fact that diagnostics and reagents were being hoarded by developed countries”, making Africa the world’s least vaccinated continent.
De Oliveira, who is also involved with Stellenbosch University's school for data science and computational thinking, said that doing the analysis of Covid-19 variants in 33 African countries was “very fulfilling”.
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