Prof Christian Happi’s team has already devised a low-cost, rapid test for the disease
Professor Christian Happi, the director of African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at the Redeemer’s University in Ede, Nigeria on June 2 2020. Picture: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP“Strong people don’t put others down — they lift them up.” So says the discreet sign at the entrance to one of the most remarkable research facilities in Africa.
ACEGID’S 52-year-old director has already set down a marker in the battle against coronavirus by devising a low-cost test for the highly contagious disease. A gleaming new building — “the biggest genomic research centre in Africa” — is scheduled to open by the end of 2020 in the tropical forests around Ede.“It makes sense to be here in Nigeria. This country is the giant of Africa — if it fails, the entire continent will fail with it,” said Happi.
It was the first lab to sequence the genetic profile of the new coronavirus in Africa — a feat that took just a few days after the first case of the disease showed up in Lagos in early March.“Previously we would have done it in Europe or in the States.”“The virus can evolve rapidly and in many ways. With genomic sequencing you have the ability to study that in real time,” said Ihekweazu.
Such methods are at the heart of several Covid vaccines being researched today, but at the time such thinking was out of the mainstream, and Happi was snapped up by Harvard to carry out research there. In 2007, learning about the disease that killed about 700 Nigerians each year, Happi was stupefied to find that tests for Lassa were sent to Germany. In the time it took to get the results back, 90% of patients had already died.
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