MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MRCG at LSHTM) is a center of excellence for scientific research and innovation, and a knowledge hub in Sub-Saharan Africa. With a vision to lead health research to save lives in Africa and improve health across the world, the MRCG has a valuable role to play in transforming health outcomes within sub–Saharan Africa and beyond. It is achieving this by bringing world class research technology to The Gambia, investing in life-changing disease surveillance and preparedness and training the next generation of researchers.
With over 75 years of experience providing health care knowledge to guide national and global policies and supporting national development priorities to improve population health and resilience, the Unit conducts its research over three broad themes – Disease Control and Elimination, Nutrition and Planetary Health and Vaccines and Immunity. It also has cross cutting themes including maternal and newborn health, and a West Africa as platform.
As the only African site we contribute to the diversity of samples in the establishment of a diagnostic transcriptomic library whose molecular taxonomy of infectious and inflammatory disease will be used as the basis for personalised molecular signature diagnosis. We have collected over 100 samples from febrile adults and have more than 500 samples from febrile children from the preceding PERFORM study.
Participants were recruited at a government facility Serekunda Health Centre. Adults presenting to the outpatient clinic with fever or suspicion of infection were recruited. The clinic is located in the Western region serving a densely populated urban region. Besides the bedside tests like malaria rapid diagnostic test and urine dipstick are done on site and all other samples were processed at the MRCG laboratories. The MRCG at LSHTM has established clinical, research and genomic laboratories all of these are certified in compliance with the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 15189 and Good Laboratory Practice. Samples are shipped to the Consortium designated laboratory for further molecular analysis along with samples from other sites.
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 848196