Between January and March 2025, the Laboratory Systems Strengthening Community of Practice (LabCoP), in collaboration with ASLM and various partners, convened seven impactful ECHO sessions. These virtual gatherings drew over 3,200 participants from across Africa, with an average of 459 participants per session. Attendees, most of whom joined from LabCoP-supported countries, remained engaged for an average of 46 minutes per one-hour session, demonstrating strong regional commitment to advancing public health through shared knowledge and innovation.

The sessions covered a broad range of critical topics, each grounded in real-world applications and country experiences. One session focused on Kenya’s efforts to systematically engage the private sector in tuberculosis (TB) control. As the private sector often serves as the first point of contact for healthcare, Kenya’s integration of private providers into the national TB response has helped standardize services, expand diagnostic access, improve surveillance and reporting, and reduce stigma around TB care. Their experience offered a practical model for other countries seeking to leverage public-private collaboration for better health outcomes.

TB Sessions

As global funding for TB and HIV programs narrows, the conversation around sustainability becomes increasingly urgent. Malawi shared its ongoing work to develop a resilient HIV and TB program capable of maintaining quality service delivery despite declining donor support. Watch the session here.

 Their approach, centered on prioritizing high-impact, cost-effective interventions and proactive emergency response planning, reflects a long-term vision for national ownership and health system sustainability.

Diagnostics also took center stage in two powerful sessions on TB testing. With WHO’s endorsement of stool-based testing for pediatric TB in 2022, many countries are now integrating this method into their diagnostic strategies. In one session, LabCoP shared findings from a 46-country survey highlighting policy progress and implementation status across Africa. This testing method, particularly valuable for children who cannot produce sputum, is now being scaled up as part of a broader effort to strengthen clinical diagnosis in pediatric TB. Watch the session here.

Another session addressed the urgent need to improve detection of drug-resistant TB through phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST). With less than half of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB cases identified in 2022, there is a clear diagnostic gap. The session underscored the importance of expanding access to timely DST, equipping participants with essential knowledge to support the rollout and use of phenotypic DST technologies across the continent. Watch the session here.

LabMaP Session

In February, participants explored the use of LabMap data for disease surveillance through country experiences from Zambia and Burundi. These ministries of health demonstrated how LabMap is being used to assess diagnostic availability, identify testing gaps, and strengthen laboratory networks within the context of a One Health approach. Their stories illustrated how real-time, location-specific data can support outbreak detection and improve national response strategies. Watch the session here.

Spotlight sessions

Data utilization also took the spotlight in a session hosted by the Monitoring and Evaluation Sub-Community of Practice (M&E SubCoP), where the Tanzania Ministry of Health presented its innovative use of dashboards to track program performance. By visualizing health data and analyzing root causes of performance gaps, these dashboards have become essential tools for driving continuous improvement and more strategic decision-making. Watch the session here.

Across all seven sessions, participants were united by a common goal: to translate data into action, build stronger systems, and ensure sustainable health outcomes for their populations. These ECHO sessions are more than knowledge exchanges—they are catalysts for change, helping to equip countries with the tools, insights, and collaborative networks needed to advance diagnostic services and public health resilience.

As LabCoP looks to the future, its ECHO sessions remain a cornerstone of cross-country learning, innovation, and system strengthening across Africa. The next round of sessions promises to build on this momentum and continue amplifying the voices and experiences that are reshaping laboratory systems continent-wide.