By Maxwell Awumah,
Cape Town, SA, Dec 14, GNA- African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), a pan-African entity on laboratory systems and diagnostics services has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Illumina, an American Company to unlock the power of genome to deliver diagnostic services, among others.
The MOU, initialled by representatives of both institutions, would deepen the scope of laboratory systems and diagnostics services and capacities on the continent to aid healthcare delivery.
Explaining the details to the Ghana News Agency, Tom Berkovits, Senior Director, Marketing, Asia, Middle East, and Africa (AMEA) said the deal would expand capacity building and ready technology that was unearthed at the back of the COVID pandemic era.
He said the initiative established a robust and enduring framework across logistics, pricing, service, and support and training that fosters coordinated utilisation of genomics to bolster health systems and promote global health security.
He said sequencing technology would help in surveillance to emerging disease outbreaks would be deployed and expanded on the continent and need not be imported into Africa.
“We need to build on genomics – otherwise, a complicated technology and expensive system previously, to track viruses among others even if they mutate.”
He disclosed that access to equipment including reagents would be visible and patients would be the end beneficiaries from therapies.
CEO of ASLM, Mr Nqobile Ndlovu said the MOU would improve laboratory workforce and testing, quality of testing and improve Africa’s laboratories.
He said ASLM valued the partnership and believed major actors would latch onto improving laboratories to deliver utmost health delivery in line with Universal Health Coverage, subscribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Dr Allan Pamba, Executive Vice-President, Diagnostics, Roche Africa said the entity was already delivering some 27 billion tests in the global space annually but poised to increase that to 10-fold in the next 10 years.
He said Roche intended to reach 500 million people within the space in reference to the current 50 million people.
He said with their Global Action Programme and Testing Solution, which delivered about 50 per cent of results on HIV and AIDS is expected to expand frontiers.
Dr Pascale Oadoa, Director of Science, ASLM said technology, innovation and test process had improved post-COVID and deliverables in terms of data has lots of potential for the continent.
She said predictive tools are available, cost-effective, and entreated major actors to embrace the new change as projections put Africa’s population at 2.5 billion by 2050.
GNA