Liaising closely with the ministries of Health from the seven countries, the RESAOLAB program is conducted and based around five areas:

• Improving regional and national governance of laboratory systems;
• Improving laboratory services by setting up a standardized quality system;
• Consolidating initial training and continuing education for laboratory staff;
• Setting up a Laboratory Information System (LIS) in the network’s main laboratories;
• Reinforcing national laboratory maintenance and management systems, through a regional approach.

An operational unit, established in each ministry, is in charge of setting up activities under the supervision of a national steering committee and an international steering committee, the meetings of which are held once a year in order to follow-up on activities in the regions. The project stakeholders also meet every year at theme-based workshops in order to concordantly propose and implement various activities related to medical biology.

Assessment of the functionality of member countries’ laboratory networks

With the objective of continuing to reinforce laboratory systems, the member countries of the network assessed the functionality of their laboratory networks during the second quarter of 2021 using the LabNet Scorecard evaluation system.

The individual data are being used to draw up an action plan for each country. The gradual roll-out of phase 3 of the RESAOLAB project will help with the implementation.

The report compiled based on these results demonstrates the trends observed in the region and will be used to measure the progress of indicators linked with the intervention of the project. Following the assessment that took place in 2021, there will be a second review at the end of the project.

Download the project start-up evaluation report (in French)

Additional activities to fight COVID-19

As of detection of the first positive coronavirus cases on the continent, the Mérieux Foundation was able to provide support for diagnosis by sending SARS-CoV-2 screening kits to Burkina Faso and Senegal.

To step up this response and to take further action to enable the network to arm itself against the epidemic, the AFD granted an additional subsidy of 1.5 million Euros to RESAOLAB through the Initiative “COVID-19 – Health in Common”. This funding is used to develop COVID-19 laboratory response strategies by mobilizing the expertise of the network to back national responses.

A study, carried out by EpiLinks and Davycas International for the Mérieux Foundation, proposed an analysis of the role and actions of laboratory management authorities in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. It drew on results obtained from a qualitative investigation carried out amongst RESAOLAB member states and reveals RESAOLAB’s contribution to the response to the health crisis in these countries.

It underlines how the network “has worked towards strengthening the technical and operational capacities of laboratories for the diagnosis of Covid-19 through access to available equipment and reagents, adapting technical facilities, improving the accessibility of diagnostic tests at a decentralized level, and enhancing the skills and knowledge of laboratory staff.”

Download the analysis study (in French)
Learn more about the analysis study

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