SARA Project
The SARA project brought together five members of the Pasteur Network—the Pasteur Center in Cameroon, the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar, the Institut Pasteur du Maroc, the Institut Pasteur de Bangui, and the Institut Pasteur de Dakar—along with the Centre National Hospitalier Universitaire Hubert Koutoukou Maga in Benin. Its goal was to build a coordinated African surveillance and research network on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by collecting, integrating, and analyzing data on resistant pathogens, phenotypes, and genetic mechanisms. Using a “One Health” approach, the project also examined AMR in animals and the environment to develop coherent control strategies across sectors. Surveillance focused on major clinical pathogens—Escherichia, Klebsiella, Salmonella, Shigella, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae—from urinary, blood, diarrheal, and genital infections, and resistance mechanisms and strain diversity were characterized through genomic sequencing.