Despite being protected and at times isolated working areas designed to be hidden from most people’s eyes, laboratories and its staff are at the forefront of diagnosing communicable and non-communicable diseases among the population. They play an important role in the early detection and confirmation of diseases - some of which can result in outbreaks - and act as a pillar of the country’s surveillance system.
In Cox’s Bazar, WHO is providing basic trainings on Microscopy for Laboratory Personnel to strengthen their ability to detect, assess and respond to public health events and increase quality of diagnostic services. By doing so, the World Health Organization aims to foster good public health laboratory practices to reduce the gap between field epidemiology and diagnostic laboratory services among the 200 health facilities currently operating in the Rohingya Refugee camps.
“The skills involved in microscopy are prone to wane in the absence of periodic trainings and this can lead to inappropriate handling of the instrument causing material damage and reducing the quality of results. This is also more prone to happen in poor resource settings due to lack of maintenance facilities, robust protocols and expert guidance. This training was designed to encourage active learning, experience sharing and address the needs as required”, says Dr. Sherry Martin, WHO Laboratory Consultant.
The WHO training on Microscopy for Laboratory Personnel intends to reach 50 specialized staff currently working in Cox’s Bazar district. Their laboratory services are essential to improve quality of healthcare services provided to the refugees and to identify agents involved in important public health events, including those that may cause public health emergencies of international concern such as disease outbreaks.
WHO Bangladesh/ Tatiana Almeida
Held in Cox’s Bazar, the training focused on the basic principles of microscopy and purpose of different staining, analysis of different biological fluids, identification of different microorganisms and allowed some time for guided practicing.
The participants explained the increased demand of their technical expertise in the context of the Rohingya refugee influx over the past 2 years: “I used to have 20 tests per day and now have to attend to 60 cases. I am also responsible for double-checking results from most partner organizations”, says Humanyun Shahin, Medical Technologist at Teknaf Upazila Health Complex.
For Anando Ghosh, working at the IOM Ledah Health Clinic for 3 years, this was an opportunity to improve his skills on microscope maintenance, “we are 2 staff and have 2 microscopes which we use to perform complete blood count, malaria testing, urine and stool analysis. Microscopy is my heart and I am happy that today I learned how to provide adequate maintenance”.
WHO Bangladesh/ Tatiana Almeida
In Cox’s Bazar WHO supplies rapid diagnostic kits, personal protective equipment, waste disposal bags and bins, consumables and reagents to multiple laboratories. In addition to that, WHO has also supported the implementation of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) field laboratory, that serves as a referral laboratory for infectious diseases diagnosis by providing molecular and immunological diagnostic testing facilities. Recently, the IEDCR field laboratory has been extended to include bacteriological culture of infectious microorganisms.
Microscopy has an indispensable role in the diagnosis of various illnesses, WHO envisions a world where every country has the capacity to detect, confirm and report public health events in a safe, timely and reliable manner by laboratory testing.