Since July, Burundi’s Ministry of Public Health, in collaboration with WHO, has been training laboratory assistants to securely transport and analyse suspected COVID-19 samples as part of the government’s mass screening campaign.
The training has targeted workers from the East African Community network of laboratories as well as four hospitals in Bujumbura and Ngozi. This capacity building initiative was organized by Burundi’s Health Ministry with the support of WHO’s Office in country and was made possible by a donation from the People's Republic of China.
Before the training started, Burundi was lagging in laboratory sampling and analysis but is getting back on track thanks to the intervention. Voluntary testing at the national level has been identified as one of the key elements in the government’s campaign to fight COVID-19. Training the laboratory assistants is part of Burundi’s wider effort to decentralize COVID-19 testing so samples don’t have to be transported as far and can be carried out faster.