African Lab Medical Lab Scientists Holds Storm Abuja for Conference
Hundreds of African Medical Laboratory Scientists will this year storm Abuja for its 2018 edition of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine Conference, ASLM, billed to hold in December.
The theme of the conference is ‘Preventing and Controlling the Next Pandemic: The Role of the Laboratory’. This is the first time Nigeria is hosting the conference and the first time it is being held outside Cape Town, South Africa, where the first three editions were staged.
Speakers expected at the conference include, Senior Director of the Diagnostic Services at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Dr. Trevor Peter; Director of African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. John Nkengasong; Founder and Director of the International Centre for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs, Dr. Waafa El Sadr, and South Africa’s National Health Laboratory Service official, Dr. Wendy Stevens, among others.
The conference will be chaired by co-founder and the Executive Director of the International Research Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, Prof. Alash’le Abimiku.
Commenting, Prof. Abimiku said: “This year’s set of speakers were specially chosen because of how passionate they are about changing the narrative around public health laboratories. They are experts and professionals who have left indelible footprints in their various health fields.”
This year’s edition of the biennial conference, which is the fourth, is expected to help achieve the ASLM’s 2020 goals of strengthening laboratory workforce by training and certifying laboratory professionals and clinicians through standardized frameworks and transforming laboratory testing quality by enrolling laboratories in quality improvement programmes to achieve accreditation by international standards.
Also, Communications Manager, ASLM, Ms. Bethanie Rammer, said the conference provides an avenue for strong collaborations with leading researchers; which in turn paves the way for the development of new strategies and medical technologies.
“By hosting conferences such as ASLM 2018 in Abuja – Nigeria, ASLM seeks to change the way that medical research is conducted. This will be a platform for various contributions, participation, coordination, training, and development of skills for future collaborations. The goal is to ensure healthy African communities now and for the long-term.”
Source: Vanguard News
