Still to be decided is how much virus to keep frozen in various countries' laboratories, along with tissue from infected animals and stocks of vaccine, which is made from live virus.
Properties of diagnostic tests may well vary between countries, laboratories and among populations of animals.
Third, unlike laboratories in industrialized countries, laboratories in developing countries often do not have the capacity to identify Sd1.
In some countries, laboratories must provide documentation of success in EQA to maintain accreditation or licensure and a number of programs have been developed with assistance from professional bodies together with significant input from accreditation agencies and institutions for improving medical activities [ 7, 8].
With the world facing critical health threats such as antimicrobial resistance, we need to urgently scale up the in-country laboratory capacities and mobilize sufficient human and financial resources to strengthen surveillance of emerging threats.
We also remarked that although the testing of panels for quality control purposes could give us some indications concerning the quality of the testing, it was through re-testing a sub-sample of the specimens and monitoring of the in country laboratory activities that potential major problems could be detected.
The survey was administered in English by IHV-UMSOM in-country laboratory teams.
A UMOH team investigated these 2 cases, but the findings were not conclusive because of inadequate in-country laboratory capacity.
The authors would like to acknowledge IHV-UMSOM in-country laboratory teams in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia for their support in carrying out this survey.
The establishment of a permanent in-country laboratory and cooperation between international public health entities facilitated rapid outbreak response and control activities.
