The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Improvising in a crisis: an empirical study of NPD teams in the field of chemistry and chemical engineering

Organizational crises can ruin a firm’s reputation and threaten its survival. The field of chemistry and chemical engineering has experienced this from the classic example of the Tylenol scare to Deepwater Horizon. In most cases, the firm is focused on communicating outwardly with external stakeholders but what about the rest of the firm? New product development (NPD) has delivered firms successfully from such financial peril and therefore can be instrumental in being a solution to a crisis. In this study, new product development teams are investigated to see their role in delivering a firm from an organizational crisis. Using an improvisational NPD approach towards dealing with a crisis, this study looks at teams at 55 firms that are associated with the field of chemistry and chemical engineering to determine whether a perceived crisis by the NPD team can be a motivating factor on the successful outcome of the new product being developed. The results indicate that a perceived crisis by the NPD team is positively correlated with project outcomes of speed and success, brings about improvisation, but does not moderate the relationship between improvisation and NPD project outcomes

Order and dynamics of intrinsic nanoscale inhomogeneities in manganites

Neutron elastic, inelastic, and high energy x ray scattering techniques are used to explore the nature of the polaron order and dynamics in the colossal magnetoresistive CMR system La0.7Ca0.3MnO3. Polaron correlations are known to develop within a narrow temperature regime as the Curie temperature is approached from low temperatures, with a nanoscale correlation length that is only weakly temperature dependent. The static nature of these short range polaron correlations indicates the presence of a glasslike state, very similar to the observations for the bilayer manganite in the metallic ferromagnetic doping region. In addition to this elastic component, inelastic scattering measurements reveal dynamic correlations with a comparable correlation length and with an energy distribution that is quasielastic. The elastic component disappears at a higher temperature T , above which the correlations are purely dynamic. These observations are identical to the polaron dynamics found in the bilayer manganite system in the CMR regime, demonstrating that they are a general phenomenon in the manganite