New Lab Matters: Biosurveillance and the opioid epidemic

Lab Matters Spring 2020, Issue 2

The opioid crisis remains a public health emergency in the United States, with more than 67,000 drug overdose deaths in 2018. Forensic and crime laboratories provide data on fatal opioid overdoses, but a sole focus on fatalities omits valuable data that could be used to protect communities. In this issue’s feature article, we discuss how public health laboratories can play a vital role in battling this crisis by contributing their analytical capabilities and knowledge of public health surveillance systems.

Here are a few of this issue’s highlights:

Read the full issue.

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Lab Culture Ep. 7: APHL’s International Team Meeting

Lab Culture Ep. 7: APHL’s International Team Meeting | www.APHLblog.org

The APHL International Team Meeting allows for US-based APHL leadership and global health program staff and consultants working in-country to discuss organizational operations and key programmatic successes and challenges. In most cases, this is the only time during the year that these individuals have an opportunity to meet face-to-face. Participants from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Guinea, Sierra Leone and APHL’s US headquarters were all in attendance.

In November, Scott Becker, APHL’s executive director, traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa for the second APHL International Team Meeting. While he was there, he sat down with five members of the APHL international team to discuss their work and what led them to pursue a career in laboratory science.

Interviews include:

  • Levi Vere, Laboratory Quality Monitoring Manager, APHL Zimbabwe
  • Shanette Nixon, Global Health Consultant, APHL
  • Esther Vitto, Laboratory Program Support, APHL Sierra Leone
  • Mohamed Fofanah, Associate Specialist, Administration and Finance, APHL Sierra Leone
  • Rufus Nyaga, LIS Technical Consultant and Project Manager, APHL Kenya
Scott Becker and Levi Vere Scott Becker and Shanette Nixon Scott Becker, Esther Vitto and Mohamed Fofanah Scott Becker and Rufus Nyaga

Links:

APHL’s Global Health Program

Mudslides in Sierra Leone

Zimbawe After Mugabe

 

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Study on pregnant women with HIV lied about having ethics approval

We recently discovered a relatively old retraction notice — from 2014 — of a study on pregnant women with HIV. The paper was retracted two years ago when BMC Research Notes discovered the authors falsely claimed they had obtained ethics approval from an institution in Kenya. The study looked at the effectiveness of an antiretroviral therapy in 50 […]

The post Study on pregnant women with HIV lied about having ethics approval appeared first on Retraction Watch.

APHL is a proud partner in the Global Health Security Agenda

Today President Obama announced the United States and 30 other nations have committed to join together to achieve the targets of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA).  APHL is proud to be a key partner in the effort to make the world safe from infectious disease threats.

APHL is working closely with US federal agencies as well as domestic agencies within African and Asian partner nations to achieve the following GHSA targets:

  • Countering antimicrobial resistance
  • Preventing the emergence and spread of zoonotic disease
  • Advancing a whole-of-government national biosafety and biosecurity system in every country
  • Establishing a national laboratory system
  • Strengthening real-time biosurveillance
  • Advancing timely and accurate disease reporting
  • Establishing a trained global health security workforce
  • Establishing emergency operations centers

APHL in Africa
Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda

To address the limited laboratory capacity and capability in many African nations, we are currently partnering with the African Society of Laboratory Medicine (ASLM) to provide technical and management assistance for design, development and implementation of the African Public Health Laboratory Network (APHLN).  Working with ASLM, APHL will convene stakeholders to develop the operational rules for the network, support laboratory accreditation and set goals for national public health laboratories. We will leverage existing laboratory models, notably the US Laboratory Response Network (LRN), to design an effective laboratory network for the continent.

As our GHSA work moves forward, APHL is also planning to initiate laboratory assessments, inventory and review of laboratory policies, training and mentoring of laboratory staff, support for development of biosafety facilities, and review of specimen referral systems, quality management system programs and capacity for detecting anti-microbial resistance.

APHL in Asia
India, Indonesia, Vietnam

In Asia, APHL is working directly with ministries of health and other national health officials to develop laboratory systems capable of safely and accurately detecting and characterizing pathogens causing epidemic disease. Lucy Maryogo-Robinson, APHL’s global health director, is traveling to partner countries in southeast and central Asia to plan activities under GHSA. In November she traveled with an APHL team to Vietnam to discuss projects to expand APHL’s longstanding relationship with that country.  Ongoing development of informatics systems and strengthening of capacity to respond to infectious diseases will be priorities.

A young Kenyan woman holds her pet deer in Mombassa, March…



A young Kenyan woman holds her pet deer in Mombassa, March 1909.Photograph by Underwood and Underwood