BACKGROUND

Who We Are

The National SARS-CoV-2 Variant Surveillance (NSVS) in Bangladesh is conducted by a consortium of four institutes: (1) Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), a Bangladesh government research institute, under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), and also the Govt mandated institute for outbreak investigation and response and communicable disease surveillance; (2) International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b); (3) Child Health Research Foundation (CHRF), and Institute for Developing Science and Health Initiatives (ideSHi). These institutes are working closely to monitor genomic variants of SARS-CoV-2 across the country.

What We Do

Our overall goal is to identify variants of SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh through institutional collaborative efforts and systematic approach. The specific objectives are:

1. to build essential capacity for genomic surveillance through strategic enhancement of the existing genome sequencing and analysis capacity.

2. to implement strategic sequencing approach to maximize information regarding the virus evolution within the country by identifying SASR-CoV-2 variants across the country.

3. to share data with stakeholders who can use these data for a broad range of pathogen threats in the future, building a sustainable platform for epidemic surveillance in Bangladesh.

Why We Do

To support the country’s epidemic preparations, it is important to scale-up whole genome sequencing (WGS) capacity following a systematic approach to monitor the SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating in Bangladesh. Utilization and strategic strengthening of this capacity of the consortium institutes will maximize the information we can obtain about the epidemic and will help in country wide interpretation.

How We Do

The consortium will sequence 1800 genome over the period of 12 months. IEDCR-ideSHi will complete 500 genomes using nanopore MinION and MiSeq Illumina platforms. icddr,b will complete 800 genomes (MiSeq illumina platform) and CHRF will complete 500 genomes (NextSeq illumina platform).

The genomic surveillance data and the outcomes of the study will be disseminated by sharing the research findings with the national and international stakeholders; Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), World Health Organization (WHO), Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) of GoB. The report of the circulatory SARS-COV-2 variants will be submitted bi-weekly to GISAID.ORG database, which is an open platform from where all the stakeholders can avail genetic data of the contemporary variants as and when required.