Victoria, Seychelles - Seychelles is stepping up genomic surveillance to investigate outbreaks and track disease variants to better understand diseases transmission and inform decisions. A joint mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is in the country to support this effort by building in-country capacity for genomic surveillance. The mission was launched on 11th March 2022 during a small ceremony at the Seychelles Hospital Victoria, by the Public Health Commissioner for the Ministry of Health (MoH) Dr Jude Gedeon. This was in the presence of the acting WHO Country Representative (WRai) of Seychelles, Dr Susan Tembo and Africa CDC’s program Lead for Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative, Dr Sofonias Tessema, the head of the Seychelles Public Health Laboratory (SPHL) Dr Leon Biscornet and other representatives of the WHO, Africa CDC and Ministry of Health.

As part of the joint efforts to build sequencing capacity, the country received a donation of one sequencing machine from the Africa CDC. This equipment will give the country the capacity to detect SARS-CoV-2 variants and other pathogens of public health significance. Experts from Africa CDC and WHO will also be providing a two-week onsite technical support to oversee the installation and testing of the sequencer. 

In her address, the WRai Dr. Susan Tembo indicated that this is part of WHO-Africa CDC’s Southern Countries Project launched in September 2021 where countries are supported to conduct in-country sequencing and produce their own data for public health decision making. 

“Pathogen genomic surveillance is a fundamental tool in public health which can be used not only for tracking variants but also for investigation of outbreaks to better understand the transmission, validate diagnostics and develop therapeutics. I commend the government for embarking on genomic sequencing using the available referral networks, through which the country was able to identify variants of concern (VOCs) including Beta, Alpha, Delta and recently Omicron”, she said. Dr. Tembo pledged continued technical support to the Ministry of Health to strengthen the country’s ability to detect and monitor SARS-COV-2 variant circulation while integrating laboratory and epidemiological data analysis.

The Public Health Commissioner, Dr. Jude Gedeon on his part thanked WHO and Africa CDC for this collaboration which he says will now allow the country to conduct such tests in-country, something which has never been done in Seychelles before. 

“With this piece of equipment in the Public Health lab, and the expertise that we are receiving, the country will now be able to overcome many of our challenges of delayed receival of our results when our genomic samples were sent overseas to reference labs. We can now have our results at a faster rate to inform decision makers as well as the public in a timely manner. I wish to thank WHO, who has been next to us for many years. The support that you have rendered to the government has been parallel to none”, Dr. Gedeon said. 

The country started molecular laboratory testing 10 years ago. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SPHL had only 5 staff trained in molecular biology and conducting Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests. With the technical assistance of WHO, over the two years, all 21 SPHL staff including some other 40 staff from the clinical laboratory and private laboratories have received training in COVID-19 diagnostics. WHO has also supported shipment of samples to overseas reference labs for sequencing. With this latest support, WHO is once again reaffirming its commitment to the government to continue to strengthen the country’s in-country capacity for genomic surveillance, which will not only benefit the COVID-19 response but allow for timely genomic sequencing for other pathogens of global public health significance.