VODAN Africa Team Wins Most Inspiring Presentation During the Global Health Symposium at Leiden University Medical Centre
The VODAN-Africa Team's presentation was voted the most inspiring during the Global Health Symposium at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), The Netherlands on May 30th, 2022. The Team represented by the Executive Coordinator, Prof. Francisca Oladipo, and the Global Coordinator, Prof. Mirjam van Reisen thrilled the audience with the achievements of Virus Outbreak Data Network Africa (VODAN-Africa).
The project won the award of the most inspiring initiative out of 5 initiatives showcased at the Symposium. Other initiatives at the events are
- Vaccine hypo responsiveness hub – Prof. Maria Yazdanbakhsh
- Innovative protection against viruses – Leyden Labs, Koenraad Wiedhaup, Founder
- Fighting Covid-19 with FAIR data: VODAN Africa – Prof. Mirjam van Reisen, Global coordinator VODAN Africa and Prof. Francisca Oladipo, Executive coordinator VODAN Africa
- Pfix: Image-guided design of the next-generation malaria vaccines? – Prof. Meta Roestenberg, Leiden University Medical Center and Prof. Fijs van Leeuwen, Leiden University Medical Center
- Vaccine delivery in the skin – Mike de Leeuw, Director MyLife technologies
The message of VODAN-Africa was centered on how African countries have been working on the production of machine-actionable digital health data (both clinical and research) that are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR).
According to Prof. Oladipo, the VODAN-Africa Project was inspired by the Ebola Virus Outbreak in Liberia where the data was lost after the outbreak. Therefore, when the COVID-19 took the world by surprise, a team of researchers across Africa and Europe with this question: How can we develop an Afrocentric system that would ensure data ownership in residence, with data analytics available at the point in care and a smart system for data visiting - instead of moving the data? The data held in residence should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR).
In her presentation, Prof. van Reisen gave an in-depth insight into the VODAN Africa CEDAR Localized Architecture. The CEDAR Localized system stores data locally which can be visualized in real-time through an internal dashboard by the local clinics/hospitals, and an aggregate dashboard that collates data from various health facilities in different countries. The Chairman VODAN-Africa Board gave the closing keynote where he spoke on Take-aways from the break-out sessions and reflections on reverse linkage and localization of knowledge.
VODAN-Africa Health System is being deployed across 88 health facilities in 8 African countries - Nigeria, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania.
Watch the Presentation Below
VODAN Africa Wins the Most Innovative Presentation
Closing Keynote by the Chair VODAN-Africa Board, Prof Mouhamad Mpezamihigo
