Policy and public engagement to promote the understanding and use of genomic data during decision making

During the COVID-19 pandemic, genomic sequencing has provided valuable information on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to ensure timely and targeted public health responses. Genomic surveillance programmes have been set up within Wellcome's Africa/Asia Programmes (AAPs) and CIDRI in South Africa. However, there is suboptimal national-level resource allocation, insufficient strategy for sampling of specimens to optimize epidemiological and clinical inference, and gaps in meta-data needed to fully and quickly interpret genomic sequencing information. Policy makers presented with genomic data to support decision making must decide if a response is needed, how large the response should be, for whom, and when. To do this, a systematic approach to assessing genomic evidence is needed. It is also unclear what the public knows about SARS-COV-2 genomic sequencing, even though some media reports and anecdotal data from current policy and public engagement work being undertaken in the AAPs may suggest limited understanding of SARS-CoV-2 variants among this audience. Through a suite of engagement activities at the AAPs, we will target both the public and policy makers to 1) increase the public's understanding of SARS- COV-2 genomic sequencing, and 2) support national level strategies by developing tools that guides the assessment of genomic evidence.