Back-to-back Statistics and Molecular Workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa
ANDEMIA and TRICE organised back-to-back statistics and molecular biology workshops in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 7 May to 6 June 2019.
Within the scope of ANDEMIA a course in „Advanced Epidemiology and Statistics“ was held at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Johannesburg from 7 to 23 of May 2019. The course was taught by Dr. Matthias Borchert (RKI Berlin). Overall 14 participants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Guinea and South-Africa took part in the 15-day course to learn and apply hands-on advanced statistical methods.
Due to some overlap in participants and to profit from the acquired knowledge in statistics, our colleagues from UP and NICD subsequently organised a workshop on the topic „Molecular Biology“. This workshop also took place at NICD from 27th May to 6th June 2019 and was funded and supported by TRICE. In total, 9 candidates from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa participated in the workshop.
During a hands-on training session the participants processed human clinical specimen and isolated bacterial strains. Furthermore, skills in molecular techniques were improved for broad diagnostics of viral and bacterial infections causing fever, respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases. These techniques included multiplex real-time PCR and the application of a macro array. The training also covered good laboratory practice, data storage and quality control as well as interpretation of results for which the previous statistical workshop proved essential.
