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- May 11, 2013
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The Citizen on Sunday sought to understand why an Ebola case has never been reported in Tanzania despite being close to countries like Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where hundreds have died since the disease first broke out in 1976.
Tanzania has the capacity to test the deadly Ebola virus that has sent shockwaves across the globe after killing more than 4,500 in West Africa where hundreds more are on death beds, The Citizen can report today.
The Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), the country's health research organisation, confirmed in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the tests could be done by the Sh1.2 billion high-tech biosafety level 3 laboratory which was inaugurated in July, last year, in Bagamoyo, Coast Region.
"This high-tech biosafety level 3 laboratory has the capacity to test Ebola. However, this has not been done to date because of lack of reagents," said the IHI executive director, Dr Salim Abdulla, when reached by phone.
Dr Abdulla, a research scientist, was reacting to a statement made early this week by a senior official with the ministry of Health and Social Welfare that Tanzania did not have a laboratory for testing Ebola.
Mr Nsachris Mwamaja, a spokesman for the ministry of Health and Social Welfare, had said tests for Ebola were being referred outside the country due to lack of such facilities within Tanzania.
Mr Mwamaja said the Bagamoyo laboratory may have had the capacity to test Ebola but it lacked approval by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
But Dr Abdulla said if the Bagamoyo laboratory was supplied with reagents it could undertake the Ebola tests with a Rolls-Royce efficiency.
"The problem is we (IHI) don't have funds to acquire the reagents and the responsible ministry has not approached us to see how we could carry out the tests," said the IHI boss.
Asked how much was needed for buying the reagents, substances used in chemical reaction, Dr Abdulla said he could not have the figure at hand because the cost involved the number of suspected cases that required testing and the time it took to do the tests.
"Since our institution's research projects are donor funded, we don't have a budget for buying the reagents," said the scientist.
Asked further on the WHO approval, Dr Abdulla said the health organisation should have started the process to approve the Ebola testing laboratory after it had begun conducting the tests.
The minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Seif Rashid, and his top lieutenants were not readily available the whole of yesterday for comment.
In July, last year, the laboratory, the first of its kind in East and Central Africa, was jointly inaugurated by Dr Rashid, when he was deputy minister for Health and Social Welfare, and the then Italian ambassador to Tanzania, Mr Pierluigi Velardi.
Both officials affirmed that following the inauguration of the laboratory Tanzania was now able to diagnose highly endemic infectious diseases including the Rift Valley Fever, Ebola and Marburg.
The construction of the laboratory was funded by the Italian Development Cooperation and the Italian National Institute for Infectious Diseases in cooperation with the ministry of Health and Social Welfare and IHI.
Dr Rashid said the laboratory would also be able to diagnose any new unknown emerging diseases which needed a high level of biosafety to make lab technicians safe and to avoid any spread of the pathogen.
He said the laboratory to be managed by the IHI's Bagamoyo branch would be able to strengthen joint operations in responding to epidemics.
Source: The Citizen
Revealed: Reasons Dar can’t test ebola - National - thecitizen.co.tz
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