Improved infectious diseases control in Peru through sustainable capacity building for bioinformatics and genome sequencing

The Peruvian population is adversly affected by infectious diseases and current govermental efforts are not sufficient to reduce the burden. While bioinformatics and genomics are relatively new approaches in molecular epidemiology, they have already made important contributions to the health of patients and populations. Bioinformatics and genome sequencing capacity in Peru is still extremely limited. Public universities like UNSA in Arequipa and UNAP in Loreto could play a major role in regional and national level infectious disease control by providing further insights in the molecular epidemiology of the infectious diseases in Peru. We propose to develop sustainable capacity in bioinformatics and sequencing through the development of a academic network between 3 universities in Peru and 2 institutions in Belgium. We selected topics of local public health importance: malaria, tuberculosis and antibiotic resistance. For these diseases, next generation sequencing can significantly improve diagnostics, surveillance and control, thus contributing to better health of the population of Peru.