As the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) marks it’s sixth anniversary since its launch, it presents us an excellent standpoint to reflect on the enormous growth and development that has been accomplished. At the time of Africa CDC’s founding in 2017, three years ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, the continent was battling other disease outbreaks, including Ebola virus disease, Yellow fever, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever and others. At the time, the pathogen genomics program was only a dream awaiting actualization. The program was launched in 2019, three months before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.