Muraz Center internship: meet Bakary Cissé
Muraz Center internship: meet Bakary Cissé
For four months, Bakary Cissé joined the AFROSCREEN research team at the MURAZ Center as an intern, learning the basics of the health research profession.
Can you introduce yourself? How did you become involved in the AFROSCREEN project?
I’m a public health doctor from Burkina Faso, with a PhD in General Medicine and a Master’s degree in Public Health, specializing in Quantitative and Econometric Methods for Health Research. After obtaining my Doctorate in Medicine and my Master’s in Public Health in 2021, I joined the AFROSCREEN project research team at the MURAZ Center, as an intern.
How did the course go? What were the objectives of the course?
First of all, I completed 7 months of theoretical courses in France, providing me with a set of theoretical skills that are important for health research. These skills enabled me to better grasp the complexity of surveillance data and to develop precise statistical models to improve understanding of public health surveillance systems.
I then carried out a field placement in Burkina Faso. I had the opportunity to put these theoretical skills into practice in the management of a respiratory infection surveillance project.
Specifically, as part of the dissertation due at the end of the practical phase, I analyzed data from Work Package (WP) 1 of AFROSCREEN’s epidemiology component, entitled “Evaluation of the SARS-CoV-2 variants surveillance system in Burkina Faso”. The aim of this WP was to carry out a baseline assessment of the COVID-19 surveillance system at sentinel sites for respiratory infections in Burkina Faso. The study provided an initial overview of the performance of the COVID-19 surveillance system in Burkina Faso, highlighting the information needed to strengthen an integrated surveillance system for respiratory pathologies. This study provided an initial overview of the performance of the COVID-19 surveillance system in Burkina Faso, highlighting the information needed to strengthen an integrated surveillance system for respiratory diseases.
Despite several strengths, the assessment revealed significant weaknesses and gaps in the COVID-19 surveillance system at sentinel sites in Burkina Faso. Overall, the performance of the COVID-19 surveillance system at sentinel sites in Burkina Faso was assessed as “moderate to good”, as it responded adequately to the public health problem for which it was set up, while achieving its objectives to a reasonable extent. Where the system has encountered difficulties, it is imperative to address these weaknesses as a matter of urgency in order to optimize the system’s performance, hence the importance of reinforcement projects such as AFROSCREEN.
The results of this evaluation will guide the country’s health authorities in the integration of SARS-COV-2 variant surveillance into respiratory infection surveillance. In addition, these results will be compared with those of the evaluation carried out after AFROSCREEN’s implementation, in order to assess the project’s contribution to improving the performance of integrated respiratory infection surveillance in Burkina Faso.
- What has the AFROSCREEN project brought you?
This internship enabled me to become project manager for the epidemiology component of AFROSCREEN/Burkina Faso. I had the chance to assist Dr Isidore Traoré, principal investigator of the epidemiology component, in the development and implementation of the AFROSCREEN project in Burkina Faso. This was an opportunity for me to put my skills in public health in general, and biostatistics in particular, at the team’s disposal. I also contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data from other research projects carried out by the MURAZ Center, in particular those of the ANRS | MIE site in Burkina Faso, notably the “POCAO”, “REVERSO”, and “COVID-19 in blood donors” projects. It was a very formative period, and I was able to learn the basics of being a health researcher within a dynamic, multidisciplinary and available team.
Photo of AFROSCREEN laboratory and epidemiology teams in Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) on their way to collect data from sentinel sites.
For four months, Bakary Cissé joined the AFROSCREEN research team at the MURAZ Center as an intern, learning the basics of the health research profession.
Can you introduce yourself? How did you become involved in the AFROSCREEN project?
I’m a public health doctor from Burkina Faso, with a PhD in General Medicine and a Master’s degree in Public Health, specializing in Quantitative and Econometric Methods for Health Research. After obtaining my Doctorate in Medicine and my Master’s in Public Health in 2021, I joined the AFROSCREEN project research team at the MURAZ Center, as an intern.
How did the course go? What were the objectives of the course?
First of all, I completed 7 months of theoretical courses in France, providing me with a set of theoretical skills that are important for health research. These skills enabled me to better grasp the complexity of surveillance data and to develop precise statistical models to improve understanding of public health surveillance systems.
I then carried out a field placement in Burkina Faso. I had the opportunity to put these theoretical skills into practice in the management of a respiratory infection surveillance project.
Specifically, as part of the dissertation due at the end of the practical phase, I analyzed data from Work Package (WP) 1 of AFROSCREEN’s epidemiology component, entitled “Evaluation of the SARS-CoV-2 variants surveillance system in Burkina Faso”. The aim of this WP was to carry out a baseline assessment of the COVID-19 surveillance system at sentinel sites for respiratory infections in Burkina Faso. The study provided an initial overview of the performance of the COVID-19 surveillance system in Burkina Faso, highlighting the information needed to strengthen an integrated surveillance system for respiratory pathologies. This study provided an initial overview of the performance of the COVID-19 surveillance system in Burkina Faso, highlighting the information needed to strengthen an integrated surveillance system for respiratory diseases.
Despite several strengths, the assessment revealed significant weaknesses and gaps in the COVID-19 surveillance system at sentinel sites in Burkina Faso. Overall, the performance of the COVID-19 surveillance system at sentinel sites in Burkina Faso was assessed as “moderate to good”, as it responded adequately to the public health problem for which it was set up, while achieving its objectives to a reasonable extent. Where the system has encountered difficulties, it is imperative to address these weaknesses as a matter of urgency in order to optimize the system’s performance, hence the importance of reinforcement projects such as AFROSCREEN.
The results of this evaluation will guide the country’s health authorities in the integration of SARS-COV-2 variant surveillance into respiratory infection surveillance. In addition, these results will be compared with those of the evaluation carried out after AFROSCREEN’s implementation, in order to assess the project’s contribution to improving the performance of integrated respiratory infection surveillance in Burkina Faso.
- What has the AFROSCREEN project brought you?
This internship enabled me to become project manager for the epidemiology component of AFROSCREEN/Burkina Faso. I had the chance to assist Dr Isidore Traoré, principal investigator of the epidemiology component, in the development and implementation of the AFROSCREEN project in Burkina Faso. This was an opportunity for me to put my skills in public health in general, and biostatistics in particular, at the team’s disposal. I also contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data from other research projects carried out by the MURAZ Center, in particular those of the ANRS | MIE site in Burkina Faso, notably the “POCAO”, “REVERSO”, and “COVID-19 in blood donors” projects. It was a very formative period, and I was able to learn the basics of being a health researcher within a dynamic, multidisciplinary and available team.
Photo of AFROSCREEN laboratory and epidemiology teams in Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) on their way to collect data from sentinel sites.