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The Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria says it inspected 103 new laboratories, sealed 23 others and arrested six quacks between May 2023 and May 2024.
The Registrar, Dr Tosan Erhabor, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the council has made significant efforts to check quackery and to ensure credible medical diagnosis in the last year.
He said the efforts promoted professionalism among medical laboratory scientists, reduced quackery and ensured quality and reliable test results were made available to people.
Erhabor explained that registration and inspection of medical laboratories is one of the core mandates of the council and is meant to ensure medical laboratories meet the pre-approval requirements of the council.
He said others are to conduct routine monitoring and inspection for compliance with the standard of practice; apprehend, prosecute quacks, and discipline professionals involved in unwholesome and sub-standard practices.
On education, the registrar said the council conducted routine assessments of universities offering Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science programme and Colleges of Health Technology offering Medical Laboratory Technicians programme.
Erhabor said that the council used structured resource verification and accreditation checklists, in line with the council’s minimum academic standard to conduct the routine assessment.
He added, “These resource verification and accreditation assessments were done with a view to assessing the manpower, equipment, infrastructure available for teaching, provision of diagnostic services, research and development at those institutions.”
Erhabor said this impacts graduation and induction, as more qualified and competent medical laboratory professionals will be available to man Nigeria’s health laboratory subsector, thus checking quackery and ensuring credible medical diagnosis.
Also, for licensure of medical laboratory practitioners, he said in an effort to check quackery and ensure credible medical diagnosis, the council insisted through institutional compliance monitoring that only registered ones conduct medical laboratory investigations.
The registrar said that the council also ensured that licenced medical laboratory scientists and medical laboratory technicians conduct investigations in both public and private medical laboratory facilities across the country to guarantee competence in medical laboratory practice and external Quality Assessment/Proficiency Testing.
According to him, the council has pursued the implementation of the National Quality Management System policy of 2020 formulated by the governing board of the council.
“This policy provides that the minimal requirement for the operation of medical laboratory practice in Nigeria is a demonstrable evidence of Quality Management System implementation with a mandatory participation in External Quality Assessment through inter-laboratory comparison,” he said.
The registrar revealed that from May 2023 to date, the council conducted two External Quality Assessment test events with an increased number of laboratory enrolments from 1000 to 1590.
Erhabor said that the council established a Proficiency Testing Corrective Action Team and embarked on Corrective Action visits to Proficiency Testing for poor-performing laboratories in the six geo-political zones of the Country.
He added that the council also leveraged funding from the United States Centre for Disease Control through the African Society for Laboratory Medicine.
Erhabor said that the council achieved the re-accreditation of the National External Quality Assessment Laboratory to ISO 17043:2010.
” All these have helped reduce the number of errors emanating from the health laboratory sub-sector, thus ensuring credible medical diagnosis,” he added.
According to him, for medical laboratory equipment calibration in sustaining quality in laboratory diagnosis, the council with support from the CDC and the Institute for Human Virology Nigeria, promoted accuracy in test measurements and laboratory equipment performance.
This, he said, was done through the setting up of the National Laboratory Equipment Calibration Centre in Abuja with international accreditation.
“The services of this centre reduced errors associated with laboratory equipment calibration, thus ensuring credible medical diagnosis,” he stated.
For In-vitro Diagnostics regulation, he said that within the period under review, the council-owned Public Health In-vitro Diagnostics Control Laboratory in Yaba, Lagos, was set up pursuant of the council’s statutory mandate to regulate the production.
To regulate the importation, sale and stocking of diagnostic laboratory reagents and chemicals with the ultimate goal of checking quackery and ensuring credible medical diagnosis, the council registered new companies, he further said.
Erhabor added that the council issued several import permits, and carried out post-market validation, medical laboratory equipment, reagents and Rapid Tesk kits.
He added, “These have impacted positively on the quality of test results emanating from medical laboratories and helped to check the proliferation of sub-standard test kits propagated by quacks in the Country.
“On Medical Laboratory Accreditation, the council accredited three new medical laboratories to ISO 15189 from May 2023 till date.
“This has helped to engender confidence in test results emanating from our laboratories on the International scene as accredited by one and accepted by all popular maxim of accreditation is adhered to,”
(NAN)
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