Efforts to strengthen disease surveillance, outbreak detection, and response in the Eastern Caribbean have begun following a recent meeting on tier-based laboratory networks organised by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO).
The meeting at the Harbour Club Hotel in Saint Lucia brought together healthcare and laboratory professionals from the Eastern Caribbean, as well as representatives from sub-regional reference labs and international partners.
The consultation aimed to help stakeholders understand what is required to develop a tier-based laboratory network that complies with the International Health Regulations (IHR) and the Universal Health (UH) standards.
A tier-based laboratory system is a network of labs, ranging from community clinics to national and regional reference centres. This system is designed to enable faster, fairer and more reliable disease detection and response.
Vishwanath Partapsingh, PAHO advisor for health systems and services, explained the goals of the stakeholder consultation.
“One of the key objectives is to have that conversation with them, build understanding of what are the key tenets of a tier-based laboratory networks, what benefits can be added from them, what are your current capacities, how are countries currently set up for these and what are some of the next steps that can be done,” Partapsingh said.
“The other one is about taking little steps on the side and looking at what the capacity and what advancements have been made in capacity in countries for the International Health Regulations and alignment with the International Health Regulations. Also, it is about sharing experiences; countries that are at different points in the journey towards strengthening their laboratory networks and setting up tier-based laboratory networks, how can other countries learn from or build from those kinds of experiences.”
Medical Officer of Health Dr Glensford Joseph said the consultation came at a good time for Saint Lucia, as it allowed engagement with other OECS member states to strengthen laboratory services.
“This consultation will really give us the opportunity to review our laboratory framework and to identify areas of challenges that we can build towards establishing a more robust laboratory system to deliver services not only at the national reference laboratories and hospitals but also as we work towards a tier-based laboratory approach as we prepare to roll out laboratory services at the community level, especially in our polyclinics,” Joseph said.
He also said the Ministry of Health values this consultation because it helps refine policies and action plans to improve laboratory systems. This will support Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and better outbreak preparedness.
“Having a very strong laboratory network, especially in a tiered approach, will allow the decentralisation of services so that people can access services, especially in their communities, and this will be very important as we continue to roll out our Universal Health Coverage package. More so, this consultation will allow for the strengthening of our national surveillance capacity as laboratory diagnosis is a critical component in allowing for the confirmation of pathogens that are contributing to outbreaks and for the better management of such an outbreak; it would allow us to better manage the patient as well as to bring the outbreak under control very swiftly.”
PAHO hopes that, through stakeholder consultation, countries in the Eastern Caribbean, such as Saint Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines, will make progress in developing a tiered laboratory system to better serve their people.
