Emerg Infect Dis. 2022 Dec;28(13):S85-S92. doi: 10.3201/eid2813.220780.
Viral genomic surveillance has been a critical source of information during the COVID-19 pandemic, but publicly available data can be sparse, concentrated in wealthy countries, and often made public weeks or months after collection. We used publicly available viral genomic surveillance data submitted to GISAID and GenBank to examine sequencing coverage and lag time to submission during 2020-2021. We compared publicly submitted sequences by country with reported infection rates and population and also examined data based on country-level World Bank income status and World Health Organization region. We found that as global capacity for viral genomic surveillance increased, international disparities in sequencing capacity and timeliness persisted along economic lines. Our analysis suggests that increasing viral genomic surveillance coverage worldwide and decreasing turnaround times could improve timely availability of sequencing data to inform public health action.
病毒基因组监测在 COVID-19 大流行期间一直是重要的信息来源，但公开可用的数据可能很少，集中在富裕国家，而且通常在收集后数周或数月才公布。我们使用可公开获得的病毒基因组监测数据 GISAID 和 GenBank 来检查 2020-2021 年期间的测序覆盖率和提交滞后时间。我们比较了各国报告的感染率和人口的公开提交序列，还根据世界银行收入状况和世界卫生组织区域检查了数据。我们发现，随着病毒基因组监测能力的提高，测序能力和及时性方面的国际差距仍沿着经济线存在。我们的分析表明，增加全球病毒基因组监测覆盖范围并缩短周转时间，可以提高测序数据的及时性，为公共卫生行动提供信息。
