Two GenPath Africa stakeholder workshops on wastewater-based surveillance held in Kenya
One of GenPath Africa’s central aims is to expand wastewater-based surveillance systems in Kenya. To achieve this goal, team members at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are working together with regional stakeholders to develop wastewater-based genomic epidemiology of zoonotic pathogens and are setting up wastewater-based surveillance systems in two cities in Kenya. The ILRI team, led by Dr Sam Oyola, has now analysed the data generated from wastewater samples collected in the two cities and is engaging with key public health officials to share their findings and to improve public health intervention and response.
As part of this effort, ILRI recently organized two stakeholder workshops, which took place on 28 August 2024 in Mombasa and on 2 September 2024 in Kisumu. The workshops brought together over 40 participants, including ILRI team members, Department of Health Services and the Water and Sanitation Company officials, as well as representatives of Veterinary and Environment Departments.
The meetings focused on wastewater-based surveillance as public health utility and an early warning system for pandemic preparedness and response. The ILRI team outlined metagenomics data gathered between October 2023 and July 2024 and discussed the abundance fluctuation and circulation of different pathogens that are of public health interest in different sampling sites. Some of the pathogens identified in the samples through these analyses raised concerns among workshop participants, and both meetings concluded with a discussion of immediate public health interventions, including ways to increase public awareness, vaccination drives and voluntary counseling and testing in strategic health facilities within the two cities.
