By Hassan Zaggi
The West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science has concluded plans to induct 120 Fellows during its forthcoming conference which is schedule to hold in Abuja.
This induction will position the College adequately for the commencement of Fellowship training in the region and also add to the number of competent medical laboratory scientists which will improve healthcare delivery in the African region.
Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja, weekend, the Registrar of the College, Dr. Godswill Okara, said that the West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science is a statutory specialized professional Postgraduate training institution of the ECOWAS region established to train specialists in all the subdisciplines and specialties of medical laboratory science profession.
The College, according to him, is aimed at strengthening the manpower capacity for efficient healthcare service, health research, disease detection, accurate diagnosis, disease surveillance, prevention and control in the West African region.
While saying that human capacity development is critical in the provision of an effective and efficient heath care service, Dr. Okara, lamented that “36 countries in the African Region have a health human resources crisis and 10 of these face critical shortages.
“This acute shortage of skilled health workers means that most countries are unable to avail appropriately skilled health workers in the right quantity where they are needed.”
Responding to a question on finding a lasting solution to indigenous vaccine in the country, Dr. Okara said that Nigeria has the capacity to produce vaccine of any type, but however, said that the political will and interest is needed by the government.
He recalled that: “Nigeria had before now produced a number of human vaccines but like we talked about lack of infrastructural facilities. Instead of upgrading the facilities, we have in the vaccine production lab in Yaba, we allowed it to go into dilapidation.
“If we could do that, it was just a question of upgrading the facility because a lot of analogue techniques have been abandoned and overtaken by modern technology.
“Nigeria refused to budget for acquisition of those modern tools that will enable the production of vaccine in the country.
“We also produced yellow fever vaccine from that same lab but as we speak, yellow fever vaccine is being imported on large scale into Nigeria.”
He, however, said that in pursuance of the goal of imparting specialized knowledge and skill on medical laboratory scientists in the region, the College in conjunction with the Society of Cellular Pathology Scientists of Nigeria (SCPSN) invited a very eminent Cytologist from South Korea,, Prof No Won Park, who is currently in Nigeria on a voluntary educational service.
The expert, has, since the past six weeks being conducting cytopathology training workshop sessions in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja.
Dr. Okara disclosed that the expert would be proceeding to Ghana on a similar educational assignment for a couple of weeks.
Prof. No Won Park, he said, came to Nigeria with over 1000 slides of various cancer diagnostic conditions for training of medical laboratory scientists in accurate diagnosis of cancer of different types and stages.
