Creative grit: the Global South takes on COVID-19, Episode 1

Conversations with scientists

Virologist Dr Marycelin Baba from the University of Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria is passionate about her work on viruses, She runs a World Health Organization (WHO)-accredited and WHO-sponsored lab where the team has worked, for example, on polio. When COVID-19 emerged, she and her team were prepared and she was called upon to help build capacity in Nigeria to address COVID-19.

When the government asked her to certify a lab not up to biosafety levels, she said no. "Even if I was to be killed, I don't mind," she says.

This is episode 1 of a series of podcasts about the grit and determination scientists in the Global South are putting to work against COVID-19. It's not, in my view, a downer of a story. It goes along with a feature I did for Nature Methods called 'Lessons from the Global South’s fight against COVID-19.' That story is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-022-01439-w