In Sudan, a mathematician invents a diagnosis for a neglected tropical disease

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Eye riveted on his microscope, Hyam Ali examines strains. To the hum of the machines in her laboratory, the young woman would prefer a musical background, she who does not like silence. Yet she doesn't complain about anything in this leafy neighborhood in southern Khartoum, where the Blue Nile flows. It is there, in the University Hospital of Soba, that the laboratory of this brilliant post-doctoral student is installed, who has already developed a diagnosis allowing to save lives.

Introducing our seriesScience is changing the lives of African women

If Hyam Ali's invention concerned a disease in the northern hemisphere, the fruit of his research would already be used and available to patients. But the health of the poorest on the planet is of little interest to large laboratories. And even if Hyam Ali, 28, has developed a tool, no industrialist has come to woo her because tropical diseases "develop in remote areas of already marginalized countries", explains the academic. The one on which Hyam Ali is working, mycetoma, has just been added to the World Health Organization (WHO) list of neglected tropical diseases while the scientist has just been honored with the prize Young Talents 2021 of the For Women in Science Africa program of Unesco and the L'Oréal Foundation.

Mycetoma is a chronic inflammatory disease that causes severe deformities, up to disability. Fighting it involves detecting it and locating the original strain. However, to enable this progress, Hyam Ali has put her mathematical skills at the service of the fight against disease, delighted to be useful to her country, she, the mathematician who has long been criticized for not choosing to become a doctor or engineer.

" What a funny idea ! »

“Studying mathematics? What a funny idea ! “, “It will not help you much here. "You won't find a job." With a smile on her lips, Hyam Ali lists the litany of remarks that punctuated her teenage years, when she mentioned her wish to pursue a university degree in mathematics. Those around her also expressed reservations, repeating to the young science enthusiast that other disciplines would make her "more useful for her country".

But Hyam Ali decided very early on not to let go. As if she sensed her path. Her temperament, her steely morale, she got them from her father, a blacksmith, who tried his luck, without any diploma, in Saudi Arabia. This is why Hyam was born on the other side of the Red Sea, in the Saudi city of Taif, and only discovered Khartoum at the age of learning to read and write.

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“My father, my sisters and some of my teachers believed in my potential and respected my choices,” she recalls. Enough to make her sufficiently sure of herself at the time of her orientation to ignore "social pressure" and follow a master's degree in computer science at the University of Khartoum, before flying to Ghana for a year of specialization. at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences.

“This year abroad was a real breath of fresh air,” recalls the researcher as she readjusts her pink scarf. It was there that she discovered that research in medical imaging required the mathematical skills she had, “to solve concrete problems”. But she stopped there and, at the end of her course in 2016, Hyam Ali returned home. For her, it's obvious: Khartoum needs her. "If all the educated people leave, Sudan will not progress," she sums up calmly behind her rectangular glasses.

Personal jigsaw

There, she continued her journey in mathematics before falling by chance, during a conference, on this forgotten disease that is mycetoma. From the outset, it is obvious that she will work on this infection. Moreover, one by one, the pieces of her personal puzzle are falling into place: her mathematical tools and her specialization in imaging in Ghana, she will use them to invent a simple, inexpensive and usable in campaigns.

Since focusing her efforts on mycetoma, Hyam Ali has joined the most advanced research center in the world to fight against this condition: the laboratory of Soba University Hospital. Here, more than 10,000 patients have been registered. A figure that greatly underestimates the number of real infections in the country, because “very little research has been carried out. We do not have an exact figure on the number of deaths due to this disease. Often people are ashamed and don't talk about it, they try to treat themselves with traditional remedies, but many die of sepsis,” explains the researcher.

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As it is impossible, due to a lack of funding, to launch large-scale diagnostic campaigns, Hyam Ali has developed a medical imaging tool to compare the different strains of mycetoma and to detect their presence more quickly in the tissues of patients. This process is less expensive than molecular tests (or PCR) and much more suited to the needs of remote areas.

Nevertheless, even for those who are detected in time, the disease remains a hell. Treatments exist but are also extremely expensive in addition to causing side effects, to the point that the best “cure” remains, most of the time, amputation.

" There's still much to do "

"Our patients are left out of the economic logic that governs the global health system," dryly reminds the mathematician whose postdoctoral fellowship is funded by the University of Khartoum and Campus France. This explains why, for the past two years, she has been going back and forth between Khartoum and the campus of the Faculty of Medicine in Tours, where she is continuing her research in the premises of Inserm. Another world where, when she landed with her samples of contaminated human tissue preserved in gum, her French friends took fright.

In Khartoum, she now teaches maths at university and carries out campaigns in schools in her free time to make young girls aware of the importance of higher education. “You have to encourage them to break down barriers, to learn new things. It is possible and we must start by changing the mentalities of our parents, ”she claims. Hyam Ali admits having been lucky that her family pushes her: “But this is not the lot of everyone in my country. There are real disparities between the cities and the countryside, where society is still deeply conservative and where many girls are married very young and become housewives. »

“The 2019 Sudanese revolution made women visible. They took to the streets to demand their rights. But make no mistake, she warns, the reality is not that portrayed by many international media, today there is still much to do. Hyam Ali wants to be optimistic, however. If scientific research is still in its infancy in Sudan and very little funded, she hopes that her country will make it possible to put young researchers and, in particular women, at the forefront.

This series was produced in partnership with the L'Oréal Foundation.

from our series “Science changes the lives of African women”

Le Monde Afrique offers a series of reports to meet these women from the continent who make the statistics lie and have succeeded in combining a passion for science and business.

Presentation of our seriesScience changes the lives of African women Episode 1In Sudan, a mathematician invents a diagnosis for a neglected tropical disease Episode 2In Cameroon, a physicist is passionate about the dangers of radiotherapy Episode 3In Rwanda, an engineer wants to convince girls to get started in science Episode 4In Kenya, the chemist who wants to give water to all of Africa Episode 5In Tunisia, an engineer tackles youth unemployment

Eliott Brachet (Khartoum, correspondence)

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