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The Conversation
The Conversation
Alan Christoffels, Director South African National Bioinformatics Institute, University of the Western Cape

African scientists are working to pool data that decodes diseases -- a giant step

Africa Disease Guinea Public Health Ebola Democratic Party Equatorial Guinea Malaria Malawi the Africa CDC
African scientists need a central repository where the genomic data they capture can be uploaded and shared. iStock/Getty Images Plus

Infectious disease outbreaks in African countries are, unfortunately, all too common. Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Uganda; Marburg virus in Guinea or Equatorial Guinea; cholera in Malawi; malaria and tuberculosis are among them.

These diseases do not respect human-made or porous borders. So it’s essential that scientists in Africa are able to generate and share critical data on the pathogens in time to inform public-health decisions.

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