global health
Building Workforce Capacity to Create
Safer Labs in Ethiopia
by Sherrie Staley, MPH, manager, Global Health
In collaboration with the US Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
and the Eagleson Institute, APHL has
launched a Biological Safety Cabinet
(BSC) Certification Program to train
maintenance engineers at the Ethiopian
Public Health Institute (EPHI) to assess
and maintain BSCs. The program is
designed to build workforce capacity and
protect BSC users while addressing the
biosafety/biosecurity target of the Global
Health Security Agenda (GHSA). APHL
is an active partner in that initiative.
Ethiopia hopes to establish EPHI as a national center for maintenance and
certification of BSCs, thus reducing the need to procure expensive assistance
from outside, and to position the institute as a regional resource for BSC
training, maintenance and certification.
In addition to improving biosafety
practices at EPHI, Ethiopia hopes to
establish EPHI as a national center
for maintenance and certification
of BSCs, thus reducing the need to
procure expensive assistance from
outside, and to position the institute
as a regional resource for BSC training,
maintenance and certification.
The BSC Certification Program
combines training, mentoring and
hand