Sentinel: A Pandemic Preemption System

Sentinel is a pandemic and outbreak early warning and response system that detects viral threats in real-time and prepares the global community to stop outbreaks before they spread. Jointly led by ACEGID (West Africa) and the Broad Institute (USA), Sentinel builds health system resilience in West Africa by detecting high-priority viruses, connecting public health stakeholders at all levels to real-time information, and empowering them to act on the data. The project has developed and currently validates a multiplex diagnostic system for rapidly detecting a wide array of viruses. When approved by regulatory authorities, the tool will be deployed as point-of-care testing. Sentinel has addressed the Covid-19 pandemic by establishing robust diagnostic and sequencing capacity in Nigeria and many African countries to support their responses.