The last decade has seen a very challenging period for public health in Africa especially. There have been outbreaks of infectious diseases as well as increasing cases of other communicable and non-communicable diseases. The destruction of thousands of lives in the three West African states of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone following the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak remains fresh in the minds of many. The threat of zika virus has been prominent. Tropical diseases remain a burden in many parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
At the heart of the battle between humanity and the microbes is the emergence of various antibiotic resistance microorganisms with the recent being the superbug, a bacterium resistant to coilistin (the most effective available antibiotic). Where lies the fate of humanity as the safety, security and health of the patient is under siege from these microbes? Combating these threats to human existence requires the assembling of a force of quality, accurate and timely diagnosis of the disease conditions so as to ensure prompt treatment/management. This mandate lies keyly on medical laboratories and the medical laboratory professionals.
The safety and wellbeing of patients cannot be achieved without collaborating physical examination with laboratory findings. Statistics indicate that above 70% of medical diagnosis sterns from the work of professionals of medical laboratory science; from the identification and confirmation of a disease condition to the use of the right drug; from disease diagnosis to patient monitoring, management and treatment, the medical laboratories play pivotal roles.
International health organizations such as the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are fronting for the empowerment of laboratories across the globe. Efforts are also being made to get medical laboratories work with appropriate standards through accreditation programs such as SLMTA/SLPTA. It is also well underpinning the fast redefinition of the practice of medical laboratory sciences with various national and international legal agencies mandated to ensure proper practices with qualified and certified professionals.
The role medical laboratory scientists play in public health delivery and patient safety is of paramountcy that international bodies are calling for the streamlining of the professional practice with policy guidelines. In a growing era of evidence base medical practice, early laboratory diagnosis has become key to arresting the myriad of public health disease outbreaks. The use of mobile laboratories and professionals of the science in such crises as the Ebola virus disease outbreak has been the bane behind arresting the threats to extinction of some human populations.
Laboratory results continue to protect and safeguard the health of patients. The many instances of wrong diagnosis as occurred with presumptive diagnosis has reduced considerably following an era of evidence base practice where the medical laboratory is at the centre of it all. Patients have been saved of the undue burden of medication and/or elective surgery after detection of wrong presumptive diagnosis following laboratory analysis.
It is therefore imperative that the profession of medical laboratory science be given the necessary impetus to grow so as to meet its ever increasing mandate of saving patients’ lives and ensuring a better public health for all of earth’s citizens. A robust institutional support, governmental and non governmental, needs to be afforded to promote the practice of the profession in this direction.
It is hoped that government would speedy the implementation of policies and programs that would enable medical laboratory science live to its core mandate of ensuring a total quality health care delivery for all.
It is said that quality laboratory delivery is a right and not a privilege and this must be made available to all. The lessons of nonexistence of policy frameworks in countries that have experienced various epidemics cannot be overlooked. Strengthening our laboratory systems would inure to strengthening our public health delivery system that would ensure a good public safety for all.