COVID-19

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European consortium, at the forefront of the fight in their respective countries, quickly mobilized to address the needs of the participating institutions of the MediLabSecure network, by supporting their response capacities to the pandemic in line with the project’s core objectives.

The main actions carried out within this framework were focused on:

Providing support for the SARS-CoV2 detection and diagnostic (including sequencing) to national reference laboratories of the network and to support the mandate of the two 2 WHO-covid-19 referral laboratories members of the Pasteur Network (South-East Asia and Africa regions).Technical assistance was also provided to veterinary laboratories, for some of them involved in human diagnostic to help carry the impressive diagnostic load.

Covid-19-Senegal — L’Institut Pasteur de Dakar, centre de référence au cœur de la réponse à la Covid-19 au Sénégal

Contributing to the deployment of the Institut Pasteur de Dakar mobile emergency response equipment and supporting the mobilisation of the EUWAM-LAB mobile laboratory as an extra facility for diagnostic on site to compensate the overload of national referential laboratory.

Covid-19-Senegal2 — Apport du laboratoire mobile EUWAMLAB à l’Institut Pasteur de Dakar lors de la pandémie de Covid-19

Supporting the manufacturing of rapid detection kits by the Institut Pasteur de Dakar and their regional free distribution to interested laboratories.
Strengthening protection capacities of healthcare workers during their daily management of COVID-19 cases with an offline training entitled “Preparation and response to the health emergency of the new Coronavirus".
Implementing a multicentric cohort study in 5 African countries to document the practices of hospital healthcare workers in contact with COVID-19 patients, to evaluate the risk of infection and to assess the effectiveness, and compliance to the recommended protective measures.
Sharing feedbacks and lessons learnt from the pandemic managements within the network through three webinars on social measures and two “Covid-19 Action Taken Review Workshops” .
Providing Personal Protective Equipment to laboratory and health care staffs to ensure their safety.
Providing the participating veterinary laboratories with updated information about diagnosis and surveillance of SARSCoV-2 in animals, through dedicated webinars, sharing of protocols and technical assistance on demand

To know more about the solidarity demonstrated during COVID-19 pandemic by Pasteur Network towards its members, the MediLabSecure network, and beyond, click here (lien vers news ITW CIBU du site MLS (cf article Journal des Projets 3).