We have already reported several times about the great and successful cooperation between Ndlovu Care Group, GIZ and the Hugo Tempelman Foundation. Now, on our trip 14 days ago, we experienced first-hand how valuable this help is. Due to the panic that suddenly gripped the world about OMIKRON, it became essential to create a PCR test at short notice. No problem for the Ndlovu Care Group laboratory.
The special feature: extensive screening is carried out here. The samples taken are not only tested for SARS-Cov-2 viruses. They are also tested simultaneously for HIV 1 and 2 and for RSV. RSV has recently spread enormously among children, especially in Germany.
This is the way research is conducted in South Africa. Generating as much information as possible in order to recognize connections as quickly as possible.
Thanks to the generous support of GIZ, which provided Hugo Tempelman with a sequencing machine for research, important studies are being carried out in this laboratory in rural South Africa in the middle of nowhere. The Ndlovu Research Center is one of the few laboratories in South Africa that can sequence a genome at all.
In the current case of the OMIKRON variant, this device is essential in order to be able to research the observations that have significance for events around the world.
And it came at exactly the right time: no one could have guessed in August at the handover ceremony for the examination device what an essential role it would play in the fall.
The South African researchers are to be thanked for their work, transparency and directness in the flow of information.
We have already reported on the research laboratory:
The Ndlovu Research Center on the upswing thanks to GIZ and the Hugo Tempelman Foundation
GIZ as a partner in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic
Hugo Tempelman: Expert opinion on the current Covid situation and social restrictions
