Short Description Health crises such as the large Ebola Virus Disease epidemic in West Africa (2014-2016) require a rapid mobilisation of resources to manage the outbreak. When existing resources and measures are concentrated and re-allocated to cope with an outbreak, routine health care can be severely compromised. In addition, fear…
Short Description Since 2016, the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine has been working with the Global Health Protection Programme (AfroLabNet) in Nigeria, Benin and Guinea to strengthen stationary and mobile laboratory capacities on viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) of the risk group 4 such as Lassa fever. The COVID-19 pandemic…
Short Description Respiratory infections represent a huge burden to the health systems in low- and middle income countries (LMICs). In the context of the current pandemic, the accurate and timely detection of the responsible respiratory pathogen has become increasingly crucial, particularly in Africa where healthcare capacities for severe cases are…
Short Description The World Health Organization (WHO) has added Lassa fever to its Research and Development Blueprint priority disease list, which includes diseases with a potential to cause public health emergencies for which there are currently no vaccinations or safe treatment solutions. The Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital…
Short Description The capacity to safely diagnose infectious diseases caused by tropical pathogens with epidemic potential is limited in many African countries. This limitation in diagnostic capacities results in failure to react adequately to outbreaks, which likely contributed to the delayed response observed during the Ebola virus outbreak in West…
Following the establishment of SARS-CoV-2 serology in 2021, the “Laboratoire des Fièvres Hémorragiques Virales de Gueckédou” (LFHV-GKD), with support of the “Délégation Préfectorale de la Santé” (DPS) and of the Gueckédou prefecture, launched a seroprevalence study in four local communities of Gueckédou prefecture in September 2021 to better understand the…
As part of the ORDER-HC project, a team of the RKI and COMAHS conducted a qualitative study in Sierra Leone between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The aim of the study was to identify and analyse strategies, measures and experiences of health care providers of maintaining…
All over the world, doctors are prescribing too many unnecessary antibiotics. This leads to bacteria becoming resistant and the medication no longer working. Especially in resource-poor regions, doctors often prescribe unnecessary antibiotics for fear of overlooking potentially life-threatening bacterial infections of the respiratory tract. Often, laboratory diagnostics and imaging that…
With the support of GHPP-CoronaGlobal program, two SARS-CoV-2 field sequencing laboratories using the MinION technologies (Oxford Nanopore Technologies) have been successfully implemented in two of our partner laboratories in Guinea and Nigeria. Following several trainings performed at the Laboratoire des Fièvres Hemorragiques Virales en Guinée (CRV-LFHVG) in Guinea in 2021…