Prof Gordon Akanzuwine Awandare, the Pro Vice-Chancellor responsible for academic and student affairs and Founding Director of the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) at the University of Ghana, delivered his inaugural lecture on the topic “How our Immune System Acquires Tolerance to Malaria and helped us Survive Covid-19”.

It took place at the Great Hall of the University of Ghana on June 8, 2023, as part of the University of Ghana’s 75th-anniversary celebrations. 

The lecture, which was the highlight of a week-long series of events beginning with an exhibition of his scholarly works at the iconic Balme Library, was a powerful demonstration of Professor Awandare’s prowess as a research scientist and a leader with a vision of building an Africa that tells its own story. 

“This evening’s lecture puts the spotlight on the sustained resource work of Prof Awandare and his contribution to his field of study; cell and molecular biology, immunology and genetics and to humanity” the chairperson of the inaugural lecture Prof Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, said in her introductory remarks.

In the lecture, Prof Awandare outlined four key topics namely, malaria, COVID-19, theories of how Africa escaped the predicted COVID-19 devastation and finally capacity building for African-led science.

He began by telling a story on inflammatory immune responses which describes how our bodies react to diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and other pathogens providing a general overview of immunity including the biological barriers like our skin that prevent infection, the innate immune response which includes a non-specific targeting system and a broadly specific targeting system and finally adaptive immunity. Focusing on adaptive immunity which is responsible for the production of antibodies that help to clear out pathogens.

He said; “An important thing about immune responses is that it needs to be regulated because too much of a good thing can be dangerous. If properly regulated you can achieve the destruction of pathogens and even cancer cells, but if not well regulated, can lead to allergies, transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases and too much inflammation”.

He also pointed out that at the centre of these inflammatory responses are proteins called cytokines that act like hormones and trigger signals in cells to cause these immune responses. He continued to explain that in relation to diseases such as malaria, infecting parasites get into the blood cells, multiply, and burst out looking for new targets to invade.

When these parasites burst, they release parasite products (antigens) which stimulate the immune response via cytokines and is reflected as the fever symptom we know to be commonly associated with the disease. He went on further to point out that “One of the unique things about malaria, however,  is that you can have the parasites and still be fine and not even know, a state described as “asymptomatic” which is  the state a majority of the populations live in, especially those living in places with high malaria spread.”

This asymptomatic state is possible because these individuals' immune systems are able to tolerate the parasites. This tolerance is in the form of a well-controlled decrease of inflammatory immune responses, built as a result of high exposure to malaria parasites and repeated infection.

 In the case of COVID-19, Prof. Awandare indicated that the major cause of fatalities was airway inflammation associated resulting from a severe increase in cytokines causing inflammation, often described as a “cytokine storm” event. This cytokine storm event causing an inflammatory immune response is also present during malaria infection as described earlier, and as such, having developed a tolerance to inflammatory immune responses as a result of malaria exposure, we as Africans were better equipped to tolerate the inflammatory immune responses of COVID-19. This is evident when comparing the maps of COVID-19 severity with places where malaria is prevalent as displayed by Prof Awandare during his lecture.

Touching on the various other theories surrounding how Africans had milder cases, he explained that it could not have been possible that excess deaths of up to 40,000 individuals would have gone unnoticed by the general population especially in developed cities like Accra which was a focal point with COVID-19 infections.

Also, theories suggesting that a generally younger African population was responsible can be disregarded because the older populations here are shown to have still had generally milder cases than outside Africa.

Similarly, it would be hard to sustain theories on genetic factors associated with being African because Africans living outside the continent were at equal risk of severity in infection as other populations and theories on the hot weather and exposure to other germs, affecting the virus here would have also been seen in other places like India where the weather is also significantly hot or places with slums where individuals are equally exposed to germs. Rounding off on the theories he said.

“We cannot claim to have had better prevention measures or case management because there were not a lot of severe cases to begin with, and on divine intervention, there is some truth to this because those who believe that malaria has helped us, it is God that made it so.”

Finally touching on capacity building he emphasises the need to nurture the next generation of African scientists, a passion which led to the establishment of the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens which provides quality training for African researchers to be world-class standards and fostering an environment of ‘grantsmanship’ allowing them to win competitive grants from across the world.

Through this approach, WACCBIP has successfully brought in over $50 million to the university and will continue to do more by way of training and research excellence. He also implored the government to amplify their efforts in supporting scientific research and implementing positive policy based on quality African research.

The event brought together several high-profile dignitaries including the Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Mrs Mary Chinery-Hesse, Prof. Ivan Adae-Mensah, and Prof. Clifford Nii Boi Tagoe, both former Vice-Chancellors of the University of Ghana; Provosts and Deans of the various Colleges and Schools in the University of Ghana; Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, African Union High Representative on Silencing Guns and Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, the Inspector General of Police. Others included Pharm. Samuel Kow Donkoh, President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana; Prof. John Baffour Agyemang Duah, Chief Executive Officer of the John Agyekum Kuffuor Foundation, and a host of others.

(Guests at the Great Hall attending the inaugural lecture)

In her closing remarks, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo commended the high-quality scientific work being done at the University by Prof. Awandare.

“I learnt that we need to continue to build capacity and it has to be done here in Africa for Africa. WACCIP has shown the way, we have home-grown and globally competitive Africans who can hold their chest anywhere in the world and do quality research.”