Two Global Centres for Health and Pandemic Prevention have been established in sub-Saharan Africa funded by the DAAD. They are following new approaches in international exchange and infection research.

Each year, infectious diseases cause many millions of deaths around the world. The region worst affected is  sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria and tuberculosis are widespread there, though particularly lethal infectious diseases such as dengue fever, Marburg virus disease and Ebola also occur in the region. However, global warming causes viruses, bacteria and parasites, which were previously common only in tropical regions, to increasingly  appear in Europe. German universities have long been collaborating with African universities and research institutions in an attempt to contain infectious diseases. Within the DAAD’s programme Global Centres for Health and Pandemic Prevention, which is funded by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, two health partnerships with African institutions were added in 2021. 

In Ghana: the fight against the Marburg virus

The German-West African Centre for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention (G-WAC) is based in Ghana. Participating partners are the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Technische Universität and Charité from Berlin, and the University Hospital Bonn. One of the objectives of the German and Ghanaian researchers is to track down the causes of pandemics. Theophilus Odoom, one of 14 doctoral students from West Africa whose research is being funded via the G-WAC, is, for example, searching for the origin of the Marburg virus. What is known is that the pathogen is transmitted to humans by bats – or by farm animals previously in contact with infected bats – and is extremely dangerous. 50 per cent of those affected by the virus die. Unlike with Ebola, however, there has not yet been any mass transmission from human to human. 2022 was the first time that three people in Ghana were infected by the Marburg virus; two did not survive. Odoom, who also heads Ghana’s National Veterinary Laboratory, is now studying bat populations in five regions around the country. He has already been able to show that around 30 per cent of a particular bat type in one region carry the virus pathogen.

In cooperation with his Bonn-based PhD supervisor, the medical anthropologist Professor Walter Bruchhausen, Odoom is exploring which conditions facilitate the transmission of the virus from animal to human. “To identify a possible outbreak scenario, it is important to analyse how humans behave, and any possible changes in their behaviour,” explains Odoom. For example, farmers in Ghana are pushing ever further into forested areas to gain new agricultural land. “Consequently, they are more likely to come into contact with wild animals.” 

Theophilus Odoom’s research combines many of the aspects that exemplify the work being done by G-WAC: it is not only that various universities are involved in networking – state structures in Ghana and the World Health Organization (WHO) are also part of this wide-ranging exchange. These interfaces make it easier for new findings to be adopted into health policy, thus achieving a key goal of the Global Centre, namely, to bring about successful health and pandemic prevention measures that will benefit the population directly.

In Bruchhausen’s view, the inter- and transdisciplinary research conducted at G-WAC to combat infectious diseases is trailblazing: “Cooperation between veterinary medicine, public health organisations, and medical anthropology is not well established, yet pandemics such as COVID-19 make it clear that we must step up such collaboration.” The coronavirus is also what is known as a zoonosis, an infectious disease that was initially transmitted from animals to humans. Education and changes in human behaviour towards wild animals could prevent the outbreak of pandemics – or at least make them less likely.

Global cooperation in Gabon

Research is the key to preparing healthcare systems to cope with possible pandemics. The Central African Infectious Disease and Epidemics Research Alliance (CAIDERA), the second Global Centre for Health and Pandemic Prevention on the African continent, believes that supporting young researchers is the best way to achieve this. The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tübingen maintains a close partnership with the Centre de Recherches Médicales de Lambaréné (Cermel) in the Central African country of Gabon. Scientists from Germany and Gabon develop new vaccines and treatments for malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases there. DAAD funding has now made it possible to set up a two-year master’s degree course specialising in infection research. Tailored to the specific needs of Central African students, it is run by the University of Tübingen and taught entirely at Cermel. The course in Infection Biology and Control is aimed primarily at students from West and Central Africa, a region that offers no other master’s programme of a similar calibre. “This degree course is a flagship project. Thanks to the accreditation in Tübingen, students have the chance to acquire a degree at a university of excellence and later to research on an international level,” explains Programme Coordinator Theresa Kahl. 

Since last autumn, the first 15 young scientists from eight African countries have been learning and researching in Lambaréné, where Albert Schweitzer once built his famous hospital. The six women and nine men receive scholarship funding from the DAAD. DAAD also provided the funding – via the Federal Foreign Office – for Cermel to be furnished with cutting-edge laboratory equipment. In addition, some of the students can use labs in Europe for their master’s thesis. 

The young researchers are taught by Cermel staff and by lecturers who travel to Gabon specially for this purpose. They learn about the most important infectious diseases and the basic principles of molecular and cell biology, genetics, immunology and statistics. Coordinator Theresa Kahl assumes that most of the participants will go on to do a PhD once they have graduated with their master’s, and that they will later work in infection research, for international institutions or in senior roles in laboratories. “Once the programme has become established and is being used as a blueprint by other institutions, this will be another step towards putting those countries that are worst hit by infectious diseases in a position to tackle such diseases themselves.”

Ulrike Scheffer (22 July 2024)