With Equitable Access to Technology, Leading African Pandemic Scientist Says ‘Bring It On’

This is a key reason he is excited about this month’s arrival of the Echo 525 from Beckman Coulter to ACEGID at Redeemer’s University in Ede, Nigeria.

“That is a very, very, very important aspect,” says Professor Happi. “During this pandemic, one of the major problems we had was supply chain, especially for reagents. Manufacturers were overwhelmed, and everyone wanted to take care of his own backyard. We in Africa were not supported as much. With this machine, that will matter less.”

Professor Happi’s partner at Ginkgo Bioworks is Ryan Morhard, Director of Policy and Partnerships, who previously has worked to strengthen global health security in roles at the World Economic Forum and with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“One of the visions we have at Ginkgo,” Morhard says, “is that yes, while the pandemic required a surge in sequencing capacity, we believe centers like Professor Happi’s will be doing a lot of sequencing moving forward—not only for pandemic preparedness, but to unlock new applications of biotechnology across the economy, from food and agriculture to energy and materials. So, from where Ginkgo sits, it feels like an opportunity to unlock capacity for pandemic preparedness, but also for the bioeconomy of the future.”

The genomic sequencing disparities between high-income countries and lower-middle income countries is stark. High income countries (HICs) account for only about 16% of the global population and lower-middle income countries (LMICs) represent about 84% of the global population, according to the Pandemic Prevention Institute and FIND, the global alliance for diagnostics, which created the SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Sequencing Surveillance Dashboard.

Yet in the past 12 months, only 8% of the SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing data shared with GISAID is sourced from LMICs, while 92% of the SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing data is submitted by HICs.

These data show limited diverse representation in SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing surveillance, inequitable access to next generation genomic sequencing technologies, and both capacity and resource challenges in LMIC. This exposes “data deserts” where pathogen detection efforts are likely limited, thus leaving the globe vulnerable to undetected emergence, evolution or spread of current or future pathogen threats.

Professor Happi recalls the early days of the pandemic as chaotic and tense, in part due to the sequencing shortfalls experienced globally.

“There were heads of government agencies calling and saying, ‘Where are the results? What is the delay?’ And I understand because they have people getting sick, but we were working as quickly as we could.”

In Rwanda, for example, “we’re in the midst of a crisis and the head of the Rwanda Biomedical Centre calls to ask us to be faster. We got him the results that night and it revealed that 93 percent of the genomes sequenced showed the presence of the Delta variant. So that night he declared a lockdown and kept that lockdown in place for a good three weeks, until the next group of samples showed only 16 percent of genomes sequenced indicating the presence of Delta.”

No wonder, then, that as soon as the Echo 525 arrived, “my team began devouring the protocols. I could see the excitement in their eyes. They can’t wait to get this underway.”

“Clearly, this work was very important,” Professor Happi notes, “but it took a toll on our staff.”