Mumba cave, Tanzania

Field sequencing in Africa – a short diary of the experience (Day 6 Another Campylobacter case)

This series of posts is about a field experiment that took place between 14-26 February 2022, by Frank M. Aarestrup.

As part of their collaboration, a group of researchers from the National Institute for Medical Research of Tanzania, the Technical University of Denmark and the University of Copenhagen embarked on an expedition to test a new low-cost, low-tech sequencing approach to analyzing microorganisms under real life conditions.


Day 6: Another Campylobacter case

While waiting for the flow cell, we visited Mumba cave. Beautiful place.

When we returned, we had approximately 10% of the output of the previous run. Again, Campylobacter jejuni so we were a bit concerned about potential contamination. However, it was a completely different strain, and the rest of the microbiome was different from the previous run, so we contacted nurse Ruth with our diagnosis. Then on our long drive to Babati, where also Ernest Hemmingway stayed on some of his hunting trips.

Go to days 7 and 8 diary entry.

Funding acknowledgements: DANIDAFleming Fund; European Commission's Horizon 2020 research program (VEO, Grant 874735).