Public health projects that are ongoing at LNS in the context of COVID-19 are focused on increasing the nation’s pandemic preparedness plan and capacity to respond.
HERA
Full title: Enhancing Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and/or Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) national infrastructures and capacities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in the European Union and European Economic Area
LNS contact point(s): Dr. Tamir Abdelrahman and Dr. Karim El Bakkouri
The LNS was awarded by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) with a HERA grant for the action entitled Enhancing Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and/or Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) national infrastructures and capacities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in the European Union and European Economic Area. This HERA incubator grant offers resources to optimize the current workflows to a state-of-the-art, sustainable, long term pathogen genomics surveillance platform. The major investments have been made to identify and characterize these variants using whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). The HERA project also allowed to the LNS to expand its bio banking capacity as well as the automation of workflows and establish higher sequencing capacities at the national level, combined with enhanced data reporting for integrated genomic and epidemiologic analysis.
ECDC Capacity Building Project
Full title: Support to microbiology-related activities and capacity building focusing on COVID-19 and influenza in the EU/EEA, the Western Balkans, and Turkey. Laboratory support, training, and standardization
LNS contact point(s): Dr. Tamir Abdelrahman and Olga Maître
This project was created in response to the ECDC call for tenders OJ/2021/DRP/2347 by the consortium of people from 8 countries in Europe and from 13 organizations. The objective of the project is to provide laboratory support for surveillance, preparedness, and response to COVID-19 and influenza, and specifically strengthen the capacity for genomic epidemiology and public health bioinformatics through interdisciplinary training.
The project is divided into four work packages: WP1 - Activities Coordination WP2 - External Quality Assessment and Bioinformatic Ring Trials WP3 - Diagnostic and virus characterization WP4 - Organization and delivery of training activities LNS contributes to WP1 (our team delivers newsletters) and WP4 (among others we provide trainings for other laboratories in Europe). The geographic scope of the project covers European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries, the Western Balkans (Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Turkey.