PICTURES OF THE EVENT
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The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) recently conducted a regional training on bioinformatics and data management for the five English-speaking countries participating in the Fortifying Institutional Resilience Against Biological Threats (FIRABioT) project: Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.
The training that took place from 15 – 19 April 2024 was hosted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, and additionally supported by experts from IZS Teramo – Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise (IZSAM) – WOAH’s Collaborating Centre on epidemiology, modelling and surveillance.
Dr Jean Baka Domelevo – Head of Data and Research Methods at ILRI leading a demonstration for the participants. Picture © I. Busuulwa (woah) 2024
Participants during a lab tour of ILRI’s sequencing facilities. Picture © I. Busuulwa (woah) 2024
Bioinformatics and data management tools are indispensable in bolstering defence mechanisms against biological threats. They serve critical roles in biosurveillance, aiding in the detection and characterisation of emerging pathogens, as well as in analysing evidence pertinent to agro-crime and agro-terrorism for attribution purposes—a field known as microbial forensics. Therefore, the primary objective of the training was to empower the invited animal health professionals with advanced competencies in bioinformatics and data management, thereby strengthening their diagnostic and surveillance capabilities. During the training, the participants also had a chance to visit ILRI’s facilities where DNA extraction and sequencing are done, as well as ILRI’s High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure.
Following this training, another regional bioinformatics and data management training will be organised for the French-speaking countries of the FIRABioT project including Algeria, Congo (Republic), Madagascar and Morocco. The training will be conducted from 7 – 11 October 2024, and will be hosted by the Pasteur Institute of Tunis.
The regional bioinformatics and data management training is one of the activities under the FIRABioT project, funded by Global Affairs Canada’s Weapons Threat Reduction Program – in support of the Global Partnership Signature Initiative to Mitigate Biological Threats in Africa.
