@FAOGhana/David Youngs

strengthening partnership to enhance veterinary laboratories in Africa

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting the Government of Ghana to upgrade the country’s Veterinary laboratories systems to better manage information using a web-based Information Management application, “SILAB for Africa” the (SILAB-FA) developed by the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise (ISZAM) of Italy.

The installation of the software was carried out in the country’s national veterinary laboratories, in Accra, Kumasi, Pong-Tamale and Takoradi, and was technically supported through a Letter of Agreement (LoA) between the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) and ISZAM.

“The software can connect with other applications to enable the veterinary Laboratories to sample and trace diseases such as COVID 19,” said Caporale Ercole Negro, a technical expert with ISZAM who was in the country on a mission to install the software.

The installation of this software makes Ghana one of the countries with the most equipped laboratory systems that can capture all information for each sample to be tested in the laboratory electronically and the results received within a short time.

SILAB is a fundamental part of the data workflow in Veterinary Services. Through SILAB all the diagnostic activities in the country can be evaluated and the Epidemiology Unit can analyze and generate statistics with the system.

One Health approach with the implementation of SILAB-FA in Ghanaian laboratories

Ghanaian veterinary laboratories have been pioneers in the launch of the SILAB-FA One Health module. In August 2020, FAO ECTAD in Ghana installed the application with a ‘One Health module’ at the Accra Veterinary Laboratory (AVL) to assist the laboratory with the management of COVID-19 samples (including human samples), following international standards. The AVL staff were remotely trained on the module and currently registers all COVID-19 samples via SILAB-FA.

“The use of SILAB-FA has helped the AVL to share information electronically and this has facilitated the traceability of COVID-19 samples from the field to the laboratory responsible for performing the diagnosis,” said FAO ECTAD National Project Coordinator, Anthony Akunzule.

According to the director of the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Pong-Tamale, Dr Emmanuel Allege-Cudjoe, SILAB-FA has “automated the generation of test reports and eliminates multiple registrations of the same data on paper records”.

FAO, IZSAM

IZSAM and FAO are collaborating in different areas and more collaboration can be expected for Ghana not only for the IT projects but also for diagnostics, training, epidemiology, etc. The mission also Visited new labs including the School of Veterinary Medicine, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Veterinary Lab. Other labs in Ghana have also requested the installation of SILAB-FA. The IZSAM expert and FAO will later visit the new labs to evaluate the possibility to extend the LoA and supporting the installation of the application in the new labs.