The African One Health Network for Disease Prevention (ADAPT) held its Annual General Meeting from Monday, May 19 to Friday, May 23, 2025, at the Lancaster Hotel in Kumasi, Ghana. This year’s meeting brought together consortium members from seven African countries—Senegal, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and Ghana—as well as two German partner institutions: the University of Leipzig and the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).
ADAPT focuses on developing antimicrobial surveillance systems across Africa and advancing antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices. The AGM served as a platform for partners to review progress made over the past year, share insights, and strengthen collaborations.
Dr. Michael Frimpong, the Principal Investigator of the ADAPT Network in Ghana and lead researcher from the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR), emphasized the importance of the meeting. “Our goal is not only to review the scientific progress made but also to explore how research outcomes can be translated into national policies on antimicrobial resistance (AMR),” he also highlighted that the Ghana team has been focused on developing rapid diagnostics for AMR—introducing innovative tools that simplify and enhance traditional detection methods.
The Scientific Director of KCCR, Professor Richard Odame Philips, welcomed participants and provided an overview of KCCR’s significant research contributions in the areas of AMR and AMS. He also introduced the broader work of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and KCCR’s collaborative role within it.
The AGM convened a diverse group of scientists, including Prof. Dr. Uwe Truyen, The Co-Director of ADAPT, Dr. Ahmed Abd El Wahed, Professor Annemarie Kaesbohrer and her team from BfR in Germany, Professor Alex Owusu-Ofori, Head of the Department of Microbiology at KNUST’s School of Medical Sciences, Professor Christian Agyare, Provost of the College of Health Sciences at KNUST, and Dr. Saviour Yevutsey, National Coordinator of Ghana’s AMR Secretariat. The presence of these and other experts underscored the multi-disciplinary nature of the network’s approach to combating AMR.
As part of the event, several capacity-building workshops were held for early-career researchers within the ADAPT Network. These included sessions on Sequencing & Bioinformatics and antimicrobial susceptibility testing using disc diffusion techniques.
The 2025 AGM reaffirmed ADAPT’s commitment to collaborative research, knowledge exchange, and the development of practical tools and strategies to address the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance across the African continent.
