GLOBAL HEALTH
Global Health Takes a Regional Approach
By Sherrie Staley, MPH, manager, Global Health and Reshma Kakkar, MA, manager, Global Health Informatics
In June 2018, APHL hosted concurrent
regional workshops for global health
security and global health laboratory
informatics in Bangkok, Thailand and
Nairobi, Kenya. While the countries
differed, the challenges faced by
laboratory scientists were remarkably
similar.
The curriculum for the global health
security workshops concentrated on key
Global Health Security areas of biosafety/
biosecurity, antimicrobial resistance,
laboratory networks, public health
surveillance, and incident preparedness
and response. These interactive regional
workshops allowed senior laboratory
professionals from public health,
veterinary and food laboratories to
present on challenges within their
respective countries. Participants also
used the workshops as an opportunity
to discuss and collaborate with global
experts from 13 Asian and 10 African
countries on how to better prevent, detect
and respond to outbreaks.
Ten Asian and African countries sent
two informatics personnel per country to
participate in the Laboratory Informatics
and Global Health Security Agenda
Workshops. Topics of focus included
laboratory data and usage, creating and
using laboratory data sets, mechanisms
for sharing quality laboratory data sets
outside the laboratory, and technical
solutions to capture and share laboratory
data. Participants emphasized the
significance of this workshop, as
laboratory data in many countries are
collected and reported by disease-specific
areas without a means to share data
either from a technology/data integration
aspect or with respect to policy and data
sharing agreement needs.
top: Africa Regional Laboratory Informatics Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya
middle left: Participants of the Regional GHSA Workshop held in Nairobi
middle right: Presentations during the Regional Laboratory Informatics Workshop in Bangkok, Thailand
bottom left: Participants of the Global Health Security Regional Workshop in Bangkok
bottom right: Asia Regional Laboratory Informatics Workshop in Bangkok
In both workshops, participants expressed
interest in a forum to enable them to
continue their valuable discussions. APHL
has established ColLABorate communities
so these interactions can continue. n
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org
Fall 2018 LAB MATTERS
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