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France's Pasteur Institute on Front Lines of Africa's COVID Response

Lisa Schlein

   PARIS - There are few days when the Paris-based Pasteur Institute and
   its far-flung network are not in the news.
   Last week, France's flagship research foundation and its U.S.
   counterparts announced promising compounds for clinical testing against
   COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
   Its scientists estimated a French strain of the virus could have
   circulated here earlier than previously thought, and that less than 5
   percent of French have contracted the infection - indicating
   confinement measures were working.
   In Africa, where the institute is present in nearly a dozen countries,
   the Pasteur Institute's Dakar facility plans to roll out potentially
   game-changing rapid testing kits, and has earned African Union
   designation as a coronavirus reference center.
   Yet even as the African facilities are lauded for their work and
   state-of-the-art equipment, some see them entwined with France's
   colonial legacy, amid growing calls for building a home-grown response
   to COVID-19 and other health crises.
   Others, however, see Pasteur's presence in places like Abidjan (Ivory
   Coast), Yaounde (Cameroon) or Antananarivo (Madagascar)--answerable to
   national health ministries and mostly staffed and headed by
   Africans--as an essential part of the continent's research landscape
   and development.
   "Each institute is autonomous," said Pierre-Marie Girard, director of
   the Pasteur Institute's international network in an interview.
   A global presence
   Founded in 1887 and named after iconic creator and French biologist
   Louis Pasteur, the institute quickly launched branches overseas,
   starting with a facility six years later in Tunisia, which was then a
   French protectorate. Today, it has facilities in 25 countries,
   including nations in Europe and Latin America.
   In Africa, Pasteur researchers have focused on diseases like malaria,
   Zika and Ebola. The foundation has also partnered with the African
   Academy of Sciences to strengthen scientific collaboration between the
   continent's anglophone and francophone regions. Some of its scientists
   have been tapped as Fellows of the Next Einstein Forum, aimed at
   building African expertise in science and technology.

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