The second annual workshop of The Heat and Health African Transdisciplinary Center (HE²AT), held from Wednesday 31 to Thursday 1 June 2023 in Abidjan, kept its promises.  

After the opening ceremony, with speeches by Professor Cissé Guéladio, principal investigator of the HE²AT project (UPGC/CSRS), then by Professor Koudou Benjamin via Zoom, representing the Director General of the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Côte d'Ivoire, and finally by the President of the University Péléforo Gon Coulibaly, Professor Coulibaly Adama, the workshop got under way. These were 2 days of intense reflection with a multidisciplinary team (from South Africa and Senegal, among other countries) led by the PI of He²at, the President of the UPGC, the Vice-President of the UPGC, Prof. Vanga Ferdinand (UPGC), and Prof. Koné Brama (WHO/AFRO) on the theme: "Developing data science solutions to mitigate the impacts of climate change on health in Africa".                      

The 2-day workshop from 31 May to 1 June was structured as follows:

- The first day was devoted to presenting the project and the activities carried out around interactive workshops with stakeholders (on the one hand on access to data, and on the other hand on the preparation of the early warning system).

- The second day saw the continuation of discussions on data and early warning; presentations and individual discussions of the Côte d'Ivoire team's protocols (post-doc/PhD protocols), the aim being to carry out in-depth reflections on how to set up an integrated early warning system (EWS) by identifying the stakeholders (executive and technical decision-makers, etc.) as well as the tools to be deployed, particularly for awareness-raising and communication.

In Africa, early warning systems (EWS) are not based on reliable data, particularly data relating to health conditions, and are therefore not always very effective. Big data" and data science methods can help identify promising adaptation interventions and optimise programmes aimed at reducing the impacts of climate change.

Part of the US programme "Harnessing data Science for health Discovery and Innovation in Africa (DS-I Africa)", the HE2AT project was initiated by a consortium of partners in the United States and Africa and is funded by The National Institutes of Health (NIH, USA).

The project partners are the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town (South Africa), the Aga Khan University (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), the Université Peleforo Gon Coulibaly (Côte d'Ivoire), IBM Research Africa (South Africa and Kenya - non-academic), the University of Washington (USA) and the University of Michigan (USA).

To implement the project in Côte d'Ivoire, a strategic partnership was signed between the UPGC and the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Côte d'Ivoire in February 2022.

Established in Côte d'Ivoire since 1951, and under the dual supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, the CSRS has proven expertise in the administrative, technical and scientific management of international projects.

AKA/Celcom