Pre-Pandemic Cross-Reactive Immunity against SARS-CoV-2 among Central and West African Populations.

For more than two years after the emergence of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease-2019), significant regional differences in morbidity persist. These differences clearly show lower incidence rates in several regions of the African and Asian continents. The work reported here aimed to test the hypothesis of a pre-pandemic natural immunity acquired by some human populations in central and western Africa, which would, therefore, pose the hypothesis of an original antigenic sin with a virus antigenically close to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

[HemoTypeSC screening for sickle cell disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): a case from the city of Kindu].

Early detection of sickle cell disease is crucial to improve people's survival. Both financial and geographic accessibility to sickle cell disease tools are barriers to universal screening in developing countries. The purpose of this study was to determine the hospital prevalence of sickle cell disease and to assess the reliability of a rapid diagnostic tool, HemoTypeSC, in a resource-limited environment.