The Africa CDC — Pathogen Genomics and Bioinformatics Fellowship Program is a continental workforce development program targeting national public health institutions and laboratories in the African Union Member States to improve the use of pathogen genomic data for outbreak detection and disease surveillance. The fellowship is program is implemented in partnership with the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), and regional centers of excellence.
Who should apply:
The program is open to National public health institutes (NPHIs) and National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) personnel who wish to gain experience in NGS sequencing or analyzing pathogen genomic sequence data. Applicants should have a minimum of BSc degree and be a citizen of the African Union Member States.
Fellowship Program:
- The fellowship has two tracks - i) a wet-lab track focusing of end-to-end protocols for next-generation sequencing of pathogens; and ii) a dry-lab track with a focus on public health bioinformatics data analytics, interpretation, and reporting.
- The fellowship program aims to support technical experts and future leaders in public health pathogen genomics and bioinformatics in Africa.
- Training led by continent-based educational and professional subject matter experts
- Training at State-of-the-art facilities across the continent
- Multilingual fellowship program
The fellowship program has the following objectives:
- To train pathogen genomics and bioinformatics workforce to improve outbreak detection, investigation & disease surveillance in Africa
- To contribute to strengthening the prevention, preparedness, surveillance, and control of infectious diseases while supporting the implementation of Africa's New Public Health Order
- To contribute to knowledge and technology transfers and capacity building within and between African Union Member States
Potential candidates and host institutions:
- We are anticipating at least 25 fellows for the 2023 cohort
- 15 host institutions across Africa. Applicants should provide evidence of the host institution's agreement to accept the fellow for the duration of the fellowship period. Africa CDC and ASLM will support fellows to identify host institutions.
- Only complete applications shall be evaluated by an independent selection committee and the outcome communicated to the applicants
Before applying read the documents below:
More details on the fellowship program
- Information Booklet - Arabic
- Information Booklet - English
- Information Booklet - French
- Information Booklet - Portuguese
How to apply:
- All interested participants should fill in the online application form based on the selected languages:
- Application form - English - https://bit.ly/3ztLuaQ
- Application form - French - https://bit.ly/3KqnQ5o
Application deadline: Friday, April 28, 2023, 5:00 PM (EAT)
Start of the fellowship: June 2023
Contact Information For questions on fellowship scope and priorities, please contact: africapgi@africa-union.org