Biosecurity Project in the Sahel Region

Background

The political situation in many West African countries remains fragile, and the number of terrorist attacks continues to rise. This is particularly worrying as dangerous infectious diseases such as Lassa fever and anthrax are endemic in the West African region and the misuse of pathogens by terrorist groups cannot be ruled out. In addition, very weak health systems, a lack of qualified laboratory staff and limited technical diagnostic capacity, as demonstrated by the Ebola outbreak in 2014/15, make it difficult to detect and control infectious diseases outbreaks immediately.
The project presented here was initiated as part of the German government's Strengthening Initiative to improve this situation. It aims to strengthen biosafety & biosecurity capacities in the Sahel region (Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad).

The project was launched in 2018 as part of the German Enable & Enhance Initiative and has been implemented since 2023 as part of the German Biosecurity Programme.

Objectives

Building on the Franco-German Biosecurity Initiative for Mali, a biosecurity project successfully completed in 2016: Mobile Laboratory Equipment to Support Outbreaks of Dangerous Infectious Diseases', the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit are implementing a capacity building project in cooperation with institutions in the Sahel region.
The aim is to strengthen the ability of the countries in the Sahel region to respond to threats from dangerous infectious agents by identifying biological risks more quickly to secure appropriate countermeasures.

Measures

The partner institutions are the Centre d'infectiologie Charles Mérieux du Mali (Mali), the Institut National de Recherches en Santé Publique (Mauritania), the Centre Muraz (Burkina Faso), the Centre de Recherche Médicale et Sanitaire (Niger) and the Laboratoire de Biosecurité et des Épidémies (Chad). A diagnostic team for the mobile laboratory unit of the Sahel region has been trained.
The project focuses on
Training specialists in the diagnosis of dangerous biological agents

• Provide mobile laboratory units to G5 Sahel partner countries
• Training of a regional diagnostic team for the mobile laboratory unit
• Training a team of trainers for the mobile laboratory (train the trainer concept)
• Research on the occurrence of high-consequence pathogens in the G5 Sahel region