The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through its regional South Caucasus Office, conducted a four-day training workshop in laboratory management in Yerevan from September 26-29, 2016. The workshop was attended by 27 Armenian laboratory directors, quality managers, and technical staff from the Ministries of Health and Agriculture. The purpose of the workshop was to provide these professionals with the necessary knowledge and tools to ensure accurate, reliable, and cost-effective laboratory services to support disease surveillance, outbreak detection, reference services, and public health research.
The workshop took place in Yerevan’s Joint Training and Resource Center, located within the newly renovated National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDCP) Reference Laboratory. During the workshop, the participants focused on all aspects of laboratory management, including laboratory infrastructure, inventory management, quality assurance, personnel management, and continual quality improvement. In addition, laboratory leaders from the Armenian Public Health Laboratory Network shared progress and experiences in implementing the International Health Regulations of the World Health Organization (WHO), including results from a recent WHO Joint External Evaluation of the progress that has been made thus far towards full compliance with these health regulations.
The U.S. Embassy’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) sponsored this training workshop and also funded the renovation of the Reference Laboratory and Joint Training and Resource Center, both of which were completed in July 2016. This workshop builds on previous DTRA-funded investments in laboratory leadership and quality management and complements the improvements in laboratory infrastructure that have been made across the public health laboratory network in Armenia.
