Dr Mbayame Ndiaye Niang

Dr Mbayame Ndiaye NIANG, Pharm.D, PhD served as the Director of the National Influenza Center at Pasteur institute of Dakar in Senegal from 2003-2019. She received her scientific education at Universities Cheikh Anta Diop at Dakar and Montpellier in France and has attended several complementary courses and workshop on viral diagnosis at Pasteur Institute of Paris and others research institutions.

Dr Niang began her career in 1990 as a research intern at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar where she spent her entire professional career. She first started working on the mycobacteria program between 1990 – 1995 (Mycobacterium Leprea and mycobacterium tuberculosis) and thus contributed to improving the diagnosis and the management of these pathologies through the dosage of inflammatory cytokines. She then worked to improve the diagnosis of arboviruses by producing monoclonal antibodies at the WHO collaborating center for arboviruses and haemorrhagic fever viruses.

From 2003 to 2019, she continued to work on the surveillance of influenza viruses and other respiratory viruses and served as deputy director and then director of the national reference center on influenza and other respiratory viruses. During this position she had to participate in several activities concerning human influenza, avian influenza and other respiratory viruses (SARS-COV, MER-COV, RSV) and to contribute to the establishment of influenza surveillance networks at the level of the WHO African region. Dr. Niang is well involved in public health activities and works closely with the Ministry of Health in the surveillance of diseases with potential epidemics.

Dr Niang organized and/or participated in many sub regional and international training courses on influenza epidemiology, virus isolation and identification and influenza diagnosis and participated in a number of WHO missions on influenza.

Dr Niang research activities focused on viral etiology of acute respiratory infections and molecular epidemiology of respiratory viruses. She is the author and co-author of many peer-reviewed publications.