World Health Organisation, WHO, has pledged to support and ensure that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, laboratory for yellow fever and measles becomes one of its regional reference laboratories.

The world health body also pledged to support the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, towards the upgrade of its laboratory facilities and the efforts to attain WHO prequalification.
Making these revelations during the tour of the agencies’ facilities in Yaba, Lagos, WHO Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Wondimagegnchu Alemu, said the world body was ready to work with the two organisations to achieve excellence in disease control, adding that making the labs reference laboratories will cut down the time spent on transporting samples, getting processing and results from other regional laboratories.
       He said: “Lab is one area that we know is very critical when we talk about disease surveillance and without capacity in-country and very good quality resource in terms of getting the right reagents, we may not protect the lives of citizens. So we believe that surveillance with capacity to confirm is a good mix. So, it is one area we would like to continue supporting and which we are currently supporting.
”I will ensure that the country office of the WHO ensures that a lab for Yellow fever and Measles as one of the regional reference labs is in place in Nigeria.”
      Speaking on NAFDAC laboratories, Alemu who expressed optimism that NAFDAC may meet the deadline for lab prequalification said he was on a fact finding mission to know how far NAFDAC has gone in terms of meeting the gaps they identified in 2015, know what is in place and what needed to be put in place.
“What I have seen is quite a determined staff and well qualified ones. They have done very well in terms of meeting some of the gaps, particularly the human resource development and lot of training have gone through and so the different modules for quality laboratory management have been addressed. What is missing is there could be faulty machines which the Director General is determined to do.’’
.       Speaking, the Director General of NAFDAC, Prof. Christianah Adeyeye pledged that the Agency was determined to replace all faulty equipment in the laboratories to enable the staff cope with volume of works coming from the 36 states of the federation and FCT.
Earlier, the Deputy Director, NCDC, Mrs. Olajumoke Babatunde who recalled that the public health laboratory at Yaba was established in the 1930s said the labs have covered so many disease outbreaks particularly in the north including cholera and meningitis.