From August 12-16, 2024, members of ASLM’s Laboratory Systems Strengthening Community of Practice (LabCoP) management team visited Conakry, Guinea to onboard their new country team into the LabCoP community. The delegation, composed of Dr. Samba Diallo, LabCoP Francophone Coordinator; Dr. Nadine Abiola, LabCoP Côte d’Ivoire Coordinator; and Charles Lamou KI ZERBO, LabCoP Project Officer, met with the authorities of the Guinea’s Ministry of Health, to orient them with LabCoP’s objectives and scope of intervention. The team facilitated Guinea’s baseline assessments on the HIV viral load (VL) and early infant diagnosis (EID) testing cascades, their integration readiness that identifies gaps and challenges in key areas within their laboratory network, and formulated their best practices to be shared with the other members of the LabCoP community within the framework of ECHO webinar sessions.
Members of Guinea’s MoH, Ms. Aissatou Camara, Dr. Diallo Mouslihou and Dr. Aimé Kourouma welcomed the LabCoP team to three laboratories, the Dream laboratory, the Donkan National Hospital laboratory and the Les Flamboyant Hospital laboratory. The tours enabled LabCoP’s management team to acclimate Guinea’s experts to the VL and EID testing cascade, from demand creation to utilization of test results for patient management, including the equipment management structure.
Members of the assessment team included technical departments and stakeholders in charge of the laboratory of the Ministry of Health, (SMIT; DNL; CTA DONKA; ANSS; PNLSH; LNRM; INSP; CRV LFHV); partners who support the Guinea laboratory network (HEQSS, MSFB, DREAM) and ASLM’s team of experts.
Throughout the workshop, participants explored the key areas of laboratory systems and networks through three standardized assessment tools used by LabCoP, namely the VL-HIV Scale-up Assessment Tool, the WHO VL-HIV/EID Tool and the Diagnostic Services Integration Readiness Assessment Tool, which helped identify gaps and challenges in key areas of the laboratory network. Based on the challenges the LabCoP team will support the national team to identify the root causes in order to prioritize interventions for inclusion into a work plan, the implementation of which will improve the availability and access to reliable and timely tests throughout Guinea’s laboratory network.
During the visit, the LabCoP team met with Ms. Khaité Sall, Secretary General of Guinea’s Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene, and requested support for the implementation of the action plan resulting from the baseline assessments. Ms. Khaité Sall expressed her gratitude for inclusion of Guinea into LabCoP and agreed to actively support the project’s activities, mobilizing the necessary resources and facilitating coordination with other stakeholders.
The next step include the validation of the evidence-based work plan developed by the country team, which will serve as an advocacy tool aimed at national and international partners to support the implementation of the identified interventions.