Coming Soon
Cholera continues to pose a major public health challenge, particularly in endemic regions. Genomic epidemiology offers powerful tools for strengthening surveillance, outbreak response, and guiding interventions. Building on lessons from SARS-CoV-2, PHA4GE and partners are working to establish robust standards and best practices that will enable the effective use of cholera genomic data in both high- and low-resource settings.
While initial efforts have produced a draft cholera metadata standard, current practices remain fragmented, with limited alignment across databases, laboratory information systems, and international frameworks. Without harmonised metadata standards, bioinformatics guidance, and structured implementation, stakeholders face challenges in ensuring data interoperability, reproducibility, and ethical use. This limits the integration of cholera genomic data into national and global surveillance systems and hinders rapid, coordinated responses to outbreaks.
PHA4GE, in collaboration with Africa CDC, CholGen, WHO and global experts, is advancing three core objectives:
Refining metadata templates, aligning with national LIMS, and publishing SOPs and tutorials for open access.
Developing analysis and visualization guidance in partnership with leading cholera genomics researchers, incorporating ethical and infrastructure considerations.
Rolling out training and pilot testing through public health laboratories worldwide, gathering feedback to optimize standards and ensure practical adoption.
Together, these efforts will create a comprehensive framework that supports interoperable, ethical, and actionable use of cholera genomic data for global health impact.
Coming Soon
Coming Soon