Nema Ahmed Alfaki is an MSc student at Swiss TPH who is pursuing her MSc project in both EVE and VIM.

Nema’s MSc project explores the epidemiology and genetic diversity of seasonal human coronaviruses (HCoVs) in Ghana, using samples from an ongoing longitudinal study initiated in 2023. The project aims to assess the incidence of HCoV infections in rural and urban settings and compare these findings to global patterns.

She will screen saliva and nasopharyngeal swab samples using RT-PCR to detect active HCoV infections and perform whole-genome amplification and sequencing on positive samples. These sequences will be analyzed using the Nextstrain platform to investigate viral evolution. To complement this, she will develop ELISA assays to measure changes in antibody titers over time, enabling estimates of past infection rates and immune dynamics in the study population.