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Dr. Amadou Sall: Serving Africa Through Medicine 

Dr. Amadou Sall: Serving Africa Through Medicine 

Dr Amadou A. Sall is the CEO of Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal and the chairman of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network and director of the WHO collaborating center for Arboviruses and viral hemorrhagic fever. Dr Sall is a virologist with a PhD in Public health. Dr Sall is an expert in epidemics response and control more specifically for arboviruses and viral hemorrhagic fevers (Ebola, Zika, Yellow fever). 

From 2002 to 2004, Dr Sall worked in Cambodia as Head of the viral hepatitis laboratory at the Institut Pasteur Cambodia. From 2010 to 2011, he worked as a Visiting Research Scientist at the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, New York, USA, on pathogen discovery.

He is currently Head of the Arboviruses and viral haemorrhagic fever unit, Director of the WHO Collaborating Center and Scientific Director of the Institut Pasteur de Dakar, Senegal, which belongs to the Institut Pasteur International Network.

His research focuses primarily on diagnostics, ecology and evolution of arboviruses and viral haemorrhagic fevers. Dr Sall has published more than 100 papers and book chapters and has given more than 150 scientific communications at international meetings.

Sall and his team are working in partnership with a British biotech company called Mologic to develop a 10-minute rapid detection test kit for coronavirus that could be available by early June.

“The purpose is to serve all countries in Africa,” said Dr. Amadou Sall, the head of the Pasteur Institute in Dakar.

Together, the Pasteur Institute and Mologic are working on two kinds of tests; a saliva swab for people who think they’re infected, and a finger prick for people who want to know if they’ve had previous exposure to the virus.

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It will be sold at cost price, which is about a dollar, thanks to grant support from the government of the United Kingdom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And the entire test — results included — can be done at home. No need for a lab with fancy equipment.

Reaching remote, rural populations is one of the biggest challenges to achieving widespread testing in Africa. Once approved for manufacturing, the test kits will be made at a newly built facility in Dakar. According to Sall, it could produce up to 4 million test kits a year.

Amadou Sall was named one of the Neusroom 100 helping the world fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Check out the full list of honourees here

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