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Tulio de Oliveira Profile picture
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Oct 21 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
In order to develop our shared vision of Global Science that values, respect & build on expertise in the Global South, we embark in an exciting & collaborative journey around the world & bring many scientific activities to Africa. This week, starts the 1st #NobelAfrica symposia
The #NobelAfrica Symposia provide a unique opportunity to support and showcase advanced research and scholarship on the African continent, and to promote research excellence and collaborative scholarship in Africa in conversation with the rest of the world. Image
The 1st #NobelAfrica Symposia is happening a few steps from my office at @Stias @StellenboschUni. A good friend & quantum physicist, Prof Francesco Pettrucione @petruccione is a main organiser. Curiously, when the pandemic started, Francesco & his team helped us to trace it!
Our transdisciplinary collaboration was a lot of fun & implemented many advanced methods to calculate the early rate of spread of COVID-19 in SA. We also program robots together for polled testing and lots of other interesting activities that I will be covering in my presentation
The #NobelAfrica symposia also have a large public engagement activity to take high-level science to many of the public universities in SA.
Today, free public lectures from some of our 'physicist collaborators' in Cape Town at the Africa Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) by @petruccione #NobelAfrica @AIMSacza Image
Today, also a great free public lectures at the Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha by Prof Thifhelimbilu Daphney Bucher & Prof Neil Turok #NobelAfrica Image
Please follow some of ure, tweet about, spread the news to your friends, families and colleagues. Lets together create a real global collaborative network that values science in every corner of the world and that inspire the new generation to make the world a better pla
Please follow the online lectures, tweet about, spread the news to friends, families & colleagues. Let's together create a global collaborative network that values science in every corner & inspire the new generation to make the world a better place. 1st #NobelAfrica symposia.

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More from @Tuliodna

Tulio de Oliveira Profile picture
Oct 23
Update of COVID-19 variants in South Africa. A new Omicron lineage (BQ.1/BQ.1.1) has been recently detected in South Africa. It is still at small prevalence (5-10%). Infectious numbers are low as well positivity rate, number of hospitalisation and deaths. A small thread 1/x Image
The Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA) is alerted and has increased genomics surveillance. Our last genomes are less than 1 week old and show some increase of BQ.1 & BQ.1.1. We are current not concerned due to high population immunity and low infections. Image
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 seems to also be increasing prevalence in Europe. In South Africa is mostly prevalent at the Western Cape, which is our most touristic province, highlighting that it is likely that these are introductions from Europe. Image
Read 7 tweets
Tulio de Oliveira Profile picture
Sep 15
The African Scientific Dream Team strikes again! Today a scientific report in Science, revealed that a large consortium of over 300 African scientists and public health institutions illustrated how the SARS-CoV-2 variants reached and spread across Africa. science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
The study shows that most of the introductions of variants in Africa were from abroad and not from Africa. The consortium found that the initial waves of infections in Africa were primarily seeded by multiple introductions of viral lineages from abroad (mainly Europe).
The ironical part of these results is that most of the introductions of variants in Africa were from abroad, but Africa was the most discriminated and penalized continent in the world with travel bans.
Read 8 tweets
Tulio de Oliveira Profile picture
Aug 23
Most important sentences of our most recent peer-reviewed publication :

Every case of monkeypox infection should be treated with the same attention and sense of urgency as the ones now in European countries and North America.
The entire epidemic of hMPXV regardless of the location needs to be halted, not just this Northern hemisphere outbreak.

We hope that the world provides the funding and focus for effective regional and global public health surveillance for emerging and re-emerging threats.
By supporting a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing classification, we can encourage African and other researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to advance genomic surveillance, share sequence data, and minimize negative impacts.
Read 7 tweets
Tulio de Oliveira Profile picture
Jul 30
Omicron BA.5 went to dominate most of the recent COVID infections in the world. This lineage was first identified in April 2022 in South Africa. The paper that describes the emergence of the BA.4 & BA.5 is now final and OPEN at Nature Medicine -
nature.com/articles/s4159…
As the previous Omicron lineages BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, the BA.4 and BA.5 was identified close to the largest airport and main economic hub of South Africa, in Gauteng. Interesting, BA.5 went a large application event in Durban, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal and SA biggest harbour.
KwaZulu-Natal, home of Durban, was the province that BA.5 (in orange) went to dominate infections quicker. It is still not clear why BA.5 has an advantage over BA.4 as they have identical Spike proteins.
Read 5 tweets
Tulio de Oliveira Profile picture
Jul 7
Thread for our latest publication on the intrahost evolution of SARS-CoV-2 virus in an immunocompromised individual with HIV in South Africa for at least 270 days with consistently replicating viruses at a high viral load. 1/n
academic.oup.com/cid/advance-ar…
The patient was a 22-year-old female with uncontrolled advanced HIV infection who was persistently infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Beta variant for 9 months. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed the infecting virus from three swabs clustered together on a background of 7977 sequences.
> 270 days, the virus acquired at least 10 mutations in the spike glycoprotein and 11 mutations outside spike. The additional spike mutations included six in RBD (S371F, N450D, A475V, F490Y, S494P and Q498R); a deletion at 141-143 NTD which leads to neutralizing antibody escape.
Read 6 tweets
Tulio de Oliveira Profile picture
Jun 27
Finally out after peer-review @NatureMedicine:
Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron lineages BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa. In this publication, we describe the origins, evolution and impact of BA.4 & BA.5, which emerged in SA and now dominate most of the global COVID infections. 1/x
BA.4 & BA.5 emerged between Johannesburg & Tshwane. This region is in close proximity to the largest airport in Africa. The lineages could come from anywhere and quickly spread in SA. BA.5 went through amplification in Durban. BA.5 is starting to dominate most global infections. Image
There is much recent discussion on the origin of BA.4 and BA.5. Bayesian phylogenetic methods revealed that BA.4 and BA.5 are distinct from the other Omicron lineages (Molecular clock signal: correlation coefficient = 0.6, R2 = 0.4). Image
Read 14 tweets

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