Author Spotlight: A Cost-Effective Genomic Workflow for Advancing Rabies Control in Resource-Limited Settings

Our research uses advanced genomics to enhance pathogen surveillance in low and middle-income countries. And this helps us empower local researchers to answer five big questions, who, what, where, why, and when. And this can inform practical solutions on the ground.

We use nanopore technology to decentralize sequencing. It's ease of use, portability, and cheaper costs relative to other platforms makes it ideal for low-resource settings. And the ability to rapidly sequence at the sample source means that we can do surveillance at the animal-human environment interface.

We face challenges in obtaining whole genomes from samples with varying quality. Often, submissions from remote areas would be transported in poor storage conditions. And also, we have limited expertise in bioinformatic tools that would be useful in interpreting data.

So these tools would be like MADDOG and drug-V GLUE. This could be used in interpreting data in a universal way to help initiate control. We're trying to demonstrate how they optimize the protocol for rapid sequences or for whole genomic sequences of rabies and to see how it can be adapted and be used in the low-income countries for sequencing of rabies so as to answer different questions on how it really is circulating, what is circulating, and when is it circulating?

And this information are necessary for rabies elimination strategies. Viral genomic surveillance is now more accessible. However, guidance for data analysis and interpretation for local control efforts is more limited.

Our protocol offers an end-to-end pipeline, empowering local scientists with frontline surveillance capabilities. Greater availability of viral genomes and methods for interpreting these data allows researchers to translate epidemiological insight into actionable information for government ministries or disease control programs and guide the decision-making process.