A decade ago, it was virtually inconceivable that African healthcare systems could even treat HIV-positive individuals because of a lack of laboratory capacity to perform diagnostic testing, viral load testing and immune cell counts—essential information for the clinical management of HIV/AIDS.
Today, however, thanks largely to local government commitment and a massive influx of foreign aid, not only are more and more of the continent’s HIV/AIDS patients in treatment, but African laboratories are gearing up additional services, such as malaria and TB testing. In fact, the focus within African health ministries has shifted from HIV/AIDS-related testing to strengthening the entire laboratory system to support a range of clinical and public health services.
Fales Zulu, chief biomedical scientist for quality assurance with the Zambian Ministry of Health explained the new paradigm:
“High-quality laboratory testing is critical for patient care, prevention, disease surveillance and outbreak investigations. The Ministry of Health’s vision is to provide quality, cost effective, appropriate health services as close to the family as possible. And in order for us to attain this vision, laboratory services in Zambia have to be strengthened so they become efficient and reliable.”
One important marker of laboratory reliability is external accreditation. A few years ago, the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Africa (WHO-AFRO) developed a laboratory accreditation checklist that has grown into an accreditation standard providing the continent’s laboratories with stepwise recognition of their incremental fulfillment of international laboratory standards.
With funding from the Zambian government and US CDC’s Strengthening Laboratory Management Toward Accreditation (SLMTA) Program, APHL has provided technical assistance and other support for three SLMTA workshops in Zambia. In conjunction with other improvement activities, this work has helped put five national Zambian laboratories on track for full WHO accreditation by late 2012, three provincial laboratories on track to achieve four-star accreditation (on an ascending five-star scale) and five additional laboratories on track to achieve at least two- or three-star accreditation in the same timeframe.
Said Zulu, “Laboratory accreditation will...assure clients and patients that Zambian laboratory services are accurate, traceable and reproducible. Once accredited, our laboratories will be able to demonstrate a well-functioning quality management system, technical competence and timely, customer-focused services that contribute to patient management.”
He said, “The process of Zambian laboratories getting accreditation was like a dream, but with the WHO-AFRO process, this has become a reality.... The enthusiasm of management and staff of the facilities undergoing the accreditation process shows that, indeed, accreditation is achievable even in resource-poor settings.”
This is good news for the 13 million residents of Zambia and for the billion people who call Africa home.