By: Haja Hawa Koroma
A New Surveillance and Diagnostic Laboratory attached to the Makeni Regional Government Hospital has been set up as an international-standard laboratory that will serve as a space for surveillance and diagnostics testing and this has been made possible by funding from the United States, through the non-profit CDC Foundation.
The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance has equipped the new laboratory with biomedical and technological tools and furnishings including laboratory equipment, biosafety cabinets, robots designed for molecular and microbiological testing, workstations, freezers, and refrigerators.
Furthermore, one in every 32 babies born dies within the first 28 days of life; and one in every 10 children dies before their fifth birthday, this is the current death rate of babies in Sierra Leone. It means out of 1,150,000 children under the age of five, more than 27,000 die across the country every single year – that’s approximately one under-five death every 20 minutes.
In an attempt to tackle the high infant and child mortality rates in Sierra Leone, in 2017 the Ministry of Health & Sanitation entered a partnership with CHAMPS to determine and track the causes of under-five mortality and stillbirths through epidemiologic surveillance.
The laboratory has been therefore established as a new workspace for CHAMPS and MOHS and this will help to build national capacity to better understand the causes of these deaths.
The laboratory is also set up to enhance readiness for future pandemics and can be utilized for testing diseases such as COVID-19.
“Our partnership with the CHAMPS network is already contributing to strengthening our health system towards universal health care in Sierra Leone. This includes counseling families and communities on maternal and child health and mortality prevention; strengthening the capacity of medical staff for proper diagnosis and care; facilitating improvements in the documentation and storage of clinical records and ensuring the functioning of health facilities by providing support for basic services and equipment. I’m pleased that this new laboratory will help to ensure the important work of determining and tracking causes of under-five mortality and stillbirths continues, ” Sanitation, Dr. Austin stated.
The United States, U.S. Ambassador David Reimer mentioned that the United States government, with support from the CDC Foundation and its donors and technical assistance from the CDC, are delighted to have been able to fund the construction of this new laboratory.
He also mentioned that this laboratory is an important part of the U.S. Sierra Leonean collaboration, together with the great work already being done to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, treat and prevent malaria, and stop the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The Director of the Emory Global Health Institute, Dr. Rebecca Martin also stated that this new laboratory will enhance Sierra Leone’s capacity to detect the most pressing causes of child death in Sierra Leone. And thus help tackle these causes.
