ACEGID Trains African Scientists on Next-Generation Sequencing for the Detection and Characterization of Mpox Virus

The African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) trained 10 public health scientists in next-generation sequencing (NGS) for the detection and analysis of mpox virus. The 3-week long workshop held from 1st – 21st of April, 2023 at Redeemer’s University, Ede, Nigeria. 

Through this workshop, ACEGID built essential capacity for the detection of mpox through hands-on library preparation and other wet lab practices, genomic data handling, analysis, interpretation and sharing, as well as data usage for mpox outbreak response for frontline health responders in West Africa. The participants were introduced to cloud-based analytical platforms like the Broad Institute’s Viral NGS pipelines, Terra, for quality control, demultiplexing, taxonomic classification and de-novo assembly.