While promoting my new pandemic book the last month, I’ve been telling audiences and interviewers that if we want to make COVID-19 the last pandemic, we need to combat infectious diseases the same way we fight fires.上个月在宣传我的大流行病新书时，我向观众和采访者反复重申：如果我们想让新冠肺炎成为最后一次大流行病，那么我们需要像应对火灾那样来抗击传染病。
Just like we have a robust system of fire alarms, firefighters, and fire hydrants to help detect and extinguish fires, we need to create an equally effective system to identify and respond to new disease outbreaks.就像我们有一个由火灾警报、消防员和消防栓组成的强大系统来帮助探测和扑灭火灾一样，我们也需要建立一个同样有效的系统来识别和应对新的疾病暴发。
This firefighting comparison is also a useful way to understand the amazing work of Sofonias Tessema.这种同消防的类比也有助于我们了解索福尼亚斯·泰瑟玛的杰出工作。
Officially, Sofonias is the program lead for the Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or Africa CDC. But in firefighting terms you might think of him as a fire safety officer who is building a network of fire watchtowers and smoke detectors across Africa.索福尼亚斯的官方职务是非洲疾病预防控制中心（简称非洲CDC）“非洲病原体基因组计划”项目的负责人。但若用消防术语描述，你可能会认为他是一位正在非洲各地搭建消防瞭望塔和烟雾探测器网络的消防安全官员。
Instead of looking out for the first signs of a fire before it can spread, however, Sofonias is focused on quickly detecting deadly pathogens before they can grow into a global threat. And instead of using watchtowers and smoke detectors, he relies on powerful genomic sequencing technologies to spot disease outbreaks.但索福尼亚斯并不是要在火灾蔓延之前寻找火灾的最初苗头，实际上，他关注的是在致命病原体发展成为全球威胁之前快速地发现它们。他所使用的也并非是瞭望塔和烟雾探测器，而是依靠强大的基因组测序技术来识别疾病的暴发。
Genomic sequencing allows scientists to read the DNA and RNA of pathogens and understand what they are, how they spread from one person to another, and develop counter measures like vaccines. During COVID-19, this technology has been an invaluable tool for identifying new variants, tracking the evolution and spread of the virus, and guiding public health responses.基因组测序技术使科学家能够读取病原体的DNA和RNA，并了解其本质以及人际传播的方式，从而开发出诸如疫苗等应对措施。新冠疫情期间，这项技术一直是识别新变种、跟踪病毒演变和传播、以及指导公共卫生应对措施的宝贵工具。
Advances in this technology have made it easier, faster, and cheaper to do genomic surveillance. Over the last two decades, the price of sequencing a full human genome has fallen dramatically. And one company, Oxford-Nanopore, has even developed a portable gene sequencer that can be operated with a laptop and no need for a lab, allowing health officials to conduct genetic testing in remote areas where outbreaks may occur.这项技术的进步使得基因组监测变得更容易、更快速、且更便宜。在过去20年间，进行人类全基因组测序所需的价格已大幅下降。一家名为牛津纳米孔的公司甚至已开发出一款便携式的基因测序仪，该仪器不需依靠实验室，并可以用笔记本电脑进行操作，从而使得卫生官员可以在可能发生疫情的偏远地区进行基因检测。
As powerful as genomic sequencing technologies have become, many countries have not taken full advantage of them. Building genomic disease surveillance capacity presents challenges because it requires investments in labs, expensive equipment, and specially trained personnel. While the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked new interest in using genomic sequencing to improve disease surveillance, many parts of the world are still working to strengthen their capacity to use this critical technology.尽管基因组测序技术已经变得非常强大，但许多国家还没有充分利用此技术。基因组疾病监测能力的建设面临诸多挑战，因为这需要对实验室、昂贵的设备和培训专业人员进行投资。虽然新冠大流行引发了人们对使用基因组测序来提升疾病监测能力的新的兴趣，但世界上许多地区仍处于努力加强使用这一关键技术的能力的阶段。
In 2019, Sofonias joined the Africa CDC to establish a continent-wide genomic disease surveillance network. One of Sofonias’s first projects was to conduct an assessment to understand how many African nations were prepared to use this technology.2019年，索福尼亚斯加入了非洲CDC，并建立了一个覆盖整个非洲大陆的基因组疾病监测网络。在索福尼亚斯负责的首批项目中，有一个是通过评估来了解有多少非洲国家已准备使用这项技术。
The results, Sofonias said, were shocking.Of the African Union’s 55 member states, just seven had public health institutions with trained personnel and equipment to do genetic sequencing.在非洲联盟的55个成员国中，只有7个国家的公共卫生机构拥有进行基因测序所需的设备和受过相关培训的人员。
Given the scale of the job before them, Sofonias and his team had planned for a phased approach to help African nations build genomic surveillance capabilities. They had to acquire the technology, hire and train the technicians to operate them, and create the data systems so governments can analyze and share the genetic information and use it to inform public health decisions. Building this system would take time.考虑到摆在他们面前的工作量的规模，索福尼亚斯和他的团队计划采用分阶段的方法来帮助非洲国家建设基因组监测能力。他们必须获得这些技术，然后雇用和培训技术人员来操作它们，进而创建数据系统，以便政府能够分析和共享基因信息，并用其指导公共卫生决策。而建立这个系统则需要时间。
But the Africa CDC soon learned that time was a luxury they didn’t have. Within weeks of Sofonias joining the Africa CDC, the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in China. And two months later, the first cases were identified in African countries.但非洲CDC很快就意识到，充足的时间只是奢望。在索福尼亚斯加入非洲CDC的几周内，首批新冠肺炎病例就在中国被发现。两个月后，非洲国家也出现了首批病例。
It’s hard to overstate the challenge before Sofonias and the Africa CDC. While genomic surveillance had been used during Ebola, Lassa fever, and cholera outbreaks, bringing this technology to scale posed many challenges in Africa, where many countries did not have the infrastructure or trained personnel to run these labs.索福尼亚斯和非洲CDC所面临的挑战之大，怎么形容都不为过。虽然在埃博拉、拉沙热和霍乱暴发期间曾应用过基因组监测，但在非洲大规模推广这项技术仍面临许多挑战，因为许多国家根本没有基础设施，也缺乏训练有素的人员来管理这些实验室。
But this was just the kind of challenge Sofonias had always been eager to take on.Born in Ethiopia, Sofonias grew up in a rural town where malaria was always a major threat. Seeing people die and suffer from the mosquito-borne disease got him interested in a career in public health. He earned a PhD in malaria genomics, an emerging field of research that uses genetic data of the malaria parasite to advance malaria eradication efforts. After graduate school, he was working as postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in San Francisco, where he was focused on how genomic data combined with mobile phone data could help researchers understand how malaria spreads from one country to another.索福尼亚斯出生于埃塞俄比亚，在一个农村小镇长大，疟疾一直是那里的主要威胁。看到人们因这种蚊媒疾病而遭受痛苦或死亡，这让他对投入公共卫生事业产生了兴趣。他获得了疟疾基因组学的博士学位，这是一个新兴研究领域，利用疟原虫的基因数据来推动为根除疟疾所做出的努力。研究生毕业后，他在加州大学旧金山分校任职博士后研究员，主要研究基因组学数据与移动电话数据的结合如何帮助研究人员了解疟疾如何从一个国家传播到另一个国家。
In 2019, when a call came from the Africa CDC asking if he would use his knowledge of genomic surveillance technologies to help Africa, he jumped at the opportunity. Sofonias saw the untapped potential of this new technology to make more informed public health decisions in Africa. And after years living abroad, he was also excited to return home to Ethiopia, where the Africa CDC is based.2019年，当非洲CDC打来电话，询问他是否愿意利用他在基因组监测技术方面的知识来帮助非洲时，他欣然接受了这个机会。索福尼亚斯看到了这项新技术尚未开发的潜力，其可以为非洲做出更明智的公共卫生决策。并且在国外生活多年后，他也很高兴能够回到祖国埃塞俄比亚，非洲CDC总部就设在那里。
Sofonias and his team scrambled to quickly build up Africa’s capacity to do genomic disease surveillance. The Africa CDC focused first on scaling up COVID-19 testing capabilities. At the beginning of the pandemic, only two African nations had the ability to perform PCR COVID tests, highly accurate tests that detect genetic material from the virus.索福尼亚斯和他的团队分秒必争，迅速搭建起非洲进行基因组疾病监测的能力。非洲CDC首先把重点放在了加强新冠肺炎的检测能力上。在新冠大流行初期，只有两个非洲国家有能力进行新冠病毒PCR检测，这是一种检测病毒遗传物质的高精度检测方法。
At the same time, his team worked to acquire next-generation sequencing technologies (NGS) for Africa. NGS technologies offer a more efficient, accurate, and cheaper way for researchers to track the slightest genetic changes in pathogens which may cause disease outbreaks. This effort received support from a group of public, private, and non-profit partners including the African Union, Illumina and Oxford Nanopore, which produce next-generation sequencing machines, the US Centers for Disease Control and our foundation.与此同时，他的团队致力于让非洲获取下一代测序技术（NGS）。NGS技术为研究人员提供了一种更有效、更准确、更便宜的方法，以跟踪那些可能导致疾病暴发的病原体中最微小的基因变化。这项工作得到了一些公共、私人和非营利合作伙伴的支持，包括非洲联盟、生产下一代测序仪的因美纳公司和牛津纳米孔公司、美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）和我们的基金会。
Thanks to Sofonias and the rest of the Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative team, 31 African nations now have the capability to do genetic sequencing for surveillance of COVID, malaria, cholera, Ebola, and other diseases.归功于索福尼亚斯和“非洲病原体基因组计划”团队其他成员的努力，31个非洲国家现在已经有能力进行基因测序，以监测新冠、疟疾、霍乱、埃博拉和其他疾病。
Despite this progress, much remains to be done. Sofonias’s team faces challenges in bringing this technology to all African nations. Access to the equipment needed in the labs has been delayed because of global supply chain disruptions. Training enough lab technicians and data scientists to process and analyze the samples has been difficult. Finally, more coordination is needed between countries to share their genetic data and use it to inform collective health responses.尽管取得了这一进展，但前路依然漫长。索福尼亚斯的团队在将这项技术推广到所有非洲国家的过程中仍面临许多挑战。由于全球供应链中断，获取实验室所需设备的时间被推迟。培训足够多的实验室技术人员和数据科学家来处理和分析样本也是个难题。最后，各国之间需要更多地相互协调，来共享基因数据，并利用这些数据为卫生领域的合作应对提供信息。
But every month, Sofonias’s team continues to strengthen and expand the system across the continent. The goal is to create a seamless, integrated network that includes laboratories at the community level, which can spot the first signs of an outbreak, perform genomic testing of pathogens, and analyze the results to guide a public health response.每个月，索福尼亚斯的团队都在不断加强和扩展其横跨整个非洲大陆的系统。他们的目标是创建一个无缝覆盖的综合网络，其中包括社区级的实验室，这些实验室可以识别疫情暴发的最初迹象，对病原体进行基因组检测，并分析结果以指导公共卫生应对。
“Our vision is bold. Our vision is optimistic. We always push forward and continue to work with the countries to show that this is actually feasible,” he said. “It really makes me hopeful that this technology can improve outbreak detection and response in Africa.”“我们的愿景大胆而乐观。我们一直在向前推进，并继续与各国合作，来证明这件事是切实可行的，”他说。“这真的让我充满希望，我相信这项技术可以改善非洲的疫情检测和应对。”
Sofonias shared the progress and challenges of building a genomic disease surveillance network with a group of graduate students who participated in a recent Gates Notes Deep Dive on pandemic prevention.