“ COVID-19 really forced us to solidify some otherwise loose coordination that was in place ,” said Lucy Maryogo- Robinson , MPH , director of APHL ’ s Global Health program . “ But now , thanks to the stress test that was COVID-19 around the world , we ’ ve been able to really improve that .”
Where We Are Today
COVID-19 may have shone the brightest light on the lack of laboratory coordination around the world , but there were flickers of problems before .
Consider Africa and the Ebola outbreak of 2014 . Not every country on the continent had the capacity to test for Ebola , and when they did , they didn ’ t always have laboratories equipped to process the tests . Sending those tests to places that could properly analyze them — like the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC )— was extraordinarily expensive , further handicapping the sharing of information .
Fast forward to 2024 , and things look different , Maryogo-Robinson said .
“ We now have , for example , the Africa Centres for Disease Control , and that group , which was stood up only four years before COVID-19 , serves as a coordinating body to help facilitate response ,” she said . “ Countries now have a sense of who has what capability / capacity and who has what resources that they can broker . They also can follow that up with workforce development , so laboratory staff can implement testing that they had never done before . A lot of this infrastructure and coordination didn ’ t , unfortunately , exist pre-pandemic .”
And if coordination was challenging before COVID-19 , so was global collaboration .
“ COVID-19 highlighted the need for sharing information on both sequencing data and logistical issues — like source availability for supplies and reagents ,” commented Kayla Laserson , ScD , director of CDC ’ s Global Health Center . “ Strong coordination encompasses a strong community of practice among public health laboratory scientists to share the application of emerging technologies , best practices and lessons learned . We [ CDC ] support an open culture of sharing
In the US especially , one of the things we see is that there ’ s a lot of money thrown at public health and at laboratories , either in the middle of a major issue or after the major issue . . . . [ O ] nce that public health emergency is over . . . those funds essentially go away . We don ’ t have that sustained approach to how we resource laboratory coordination , both domestically and globally .”
— Chris N . Mangal , MPH data and solving public health problems within a national public health system and the global community .”
Coordination Challenges
Despite the progress , there ’ s still an urgent need for improvement , even here in the US , say experts .
“ We need to have a better approach to how we engage laboratories , how we resource those laboratories and how we form stronger public / private partnerships ,” said Chris N . Mangal , MPH head of APHL ’ s Public Health Preparedness and Response program .
And it all starts , she said , with sustained funding .
“ In the US especially , one of the things we see is that there ’ s a lot of money thrown at public health and at laboratories , either in the middle of a major issue or after the major issue ,” Mangal said . “ We saw it with anthrax , H1N1 and certainly with COVID . The amount of funding that came through for the COVID response was unprecedented . But what happens is once that public health emergency is over and the threat is at the back of everyone ’ s mind , those funds essentially go away . We don ’ t have that sustained approach to how we resource laboratory coordination , both domestically and globally .”
One of the places where that funding is essential is in workforce recruitment and retainment . Spending time and resources training people only to have them turn around and offboard isn ’ t a good business model for any industry or organization .
“ A lot of that has to do with salaries and the total compensation of what laboratory professionals are offered ,”
14 LAB MATTERS Winter 2024
PublicHealthLabs @ APHL APHL . org