As well as being the first step in effective treatment, diagnostics are also an essential tool for monitoring and controlling diseases. They must be made an integral part of national healthcare systems. Four priorities govern our work to develop biology labs:
- Setting up the infrastructure, equipment, and computer systems that underpin quality medical biology,
- Strengthening the skills and processes needed to provide diagnostic services,
- Improving the management and efficiency of clinical laboratories (assessment, planning, supervision)
- Helping health authorities to build a laboratory system that is able to prevent and monitor diseases (managing samples, epidemiological monitoring, creating networks)
Diagnostics are central to global health challenges
We carry out several projects dedicated to bolstering global monitoring capacity, a GHSA priority.
A bulwark against the spread of epidemics, diagnostics are a key component of the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR), which seek to prevent serious risks to global public health. In the wake of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014, bolstering global monitoring capacity is now a Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) priority.
It has attracted substantial funding and been the subject of numerous calls for projects, particularly from CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and USAID (United States Agency for International Development). Several of our projects were able to secure funding from the Global Health Security Agenda, especially in Mali and Senegal.
Laboratory development projects
- CAM-LAB: Improving diagnosis by assisting the Ministry of Health as it consolidates the Cambodian laboratory network (Cambodia)
- DJOMI: Strengthening the national laboratory network (Mali)
- HIV Viral Load Network: Monitoring the viral load to assess the effectiveness of antiretroviral treatments (Myanmar)
- I-Lab: Reinforced monitoring of infectious diseases by automating laboratories’ epidemiological data (Senegal)
- Khammouane: Bolstering the system of district laboratories in Khammouane province (Laos)
- LAB-NET: Surveillance of hemorrhagic fever syndromes and strengthening clinical laboratories (Guinea)
- LABOGUI: Developing 30 regional laboratories and overhauling the national healthcare system (Guinea)
- Mobile laboratory: diagnosing Ebola virus disease (Mali)
- RESAMAD: Technical support for setting up a network of public hospital laboratories (Madagascar)
- RESAOLAB: Strengthening the quality and accessibility of diagnostic testing in West Africa (seven countries)
- SPHaitiLAB: Establishing a national laboratory policy (Haiti)
- WARDS: West African Regional Disease Surveillance network (for the 15 ECOWAS countries)