Ethiopian Review

The National Animal Health Diagnostic and Investigation Centre (NAHDIC) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) has included a 90,000 dollars worth laboratory into its operations.

The new facility of the institution, a Bio-Safety Level-3 (BSL-3) rating laboratory, is financed by the Fourth Livestock Development Project (FLDP) of MoARD.

This facility, to be used for the diagnosis of highly contagious and zoonotic diseases without endangering the safety of its staff and the surrounding, is allowed only to laboratories (institutions) that adhere to internationally accepted safety standards, according to Mesfin Sahle (PhD), director of the centre.

The major zoonotic – any infectious disease that is able to be transmitted (in some instances, by a vector) from other animals, both wild and domestic, to humans or from humans to animals (the latter is sometimes called reverse zoonosis) – and highly infectious diseases the laboratory investigates include avian flu (influenza), swine flu, foot and mouth disease, rift valley fever, tuberculosis, brucellosis and mad cow, the Director explained.

All this investigation is gong to be backed by high-tech equipment and facilities, like Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT PCR), a PCR work station, a thermo-mixer, a refrigerated micro-centrifuge, bio-safety cabinets, incubators, chemical storage cabinets, a homogenizer, personal protective and other laboratory benching.

Currently, two technicians who received international training in RT PCR and other diagnostic techniques and one veterinarian trained in international reference laboratory for avian influenza have been assigned to work in the laboratory, according to documents on the operations of the centre.

Located in south west Shewa, Sebeta town – 24kKm from Addis Abeba – NAHDIC was established in 1995 as a Central Disease Investigation Laboratory (CDIL) under the MoARD and co-funded by of the World Bank and the Ethiopian government. In 1997, CDIL was transferred to the then Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization (EARO) and joined the agricultural research system being responsible for carrying out and coordination of animal health research in the country.

In 2007, the centre was restructured under MoARD to provide referral animal diseases diagnostic and investigation services and was renamed as National Animal Health Diagnostic and Investigation Centre (NAHDIC).

It now has a total of 120 personnel where the scientific staff consists of 170 researchers with different levels of qualification and experience, 22 laboratory technologists and technicians and the remaining 81 are auxiliary staff who avail the logistical support sought by the technical staff or by the centre.

At the beginning, samples diagnosed in the laboratory were less than 60pc but currently it has reached more than 95pc of the case in the country. The time it takes to for laboratory results to come out has also been reduced to 3-5 days, from what was used to be over 10 days at the beginning, according to centre publications.

The new laboratory was inaugurated last Friday, May 15, 2009.

- By MERGA YONAS | Addis Fortune