Perspectives of public health laboratories in emerging infectious diseases

Chua, Kaw Bing; Gubler, Duane J

A national reference laboratory will also be able to play an important role as part of a regional laboratory network to strengthen regional public health laboratory capacity in providing specific referral functions for public health diagnostic laboratories in other countries that do not have a reference laboratory. The public health research laboratories within the research institutes of ministries of health and universities or even private research institutions are best suited and can play a crucial role in collaborating with the national public health reference and diagnostic laboratories to discover novel pathogens of many human diseases under category 4, especially in subcategory 4b. The proposed network scheme will provide more cost-efficient laboratory services and ensure a regular flow of laboratory work to maintain the competency of technical staff to produce quality output. Because of the increased likelihood of epidemic diseases caused by novel pathogens, diagnostic laboratories serving as the primary entry point of investigation should be able to take a more generic approach in pathogen detection, isolation and identification. The traditional existing system of 'compartmentalization' of national disease/pathogenspecific diagnostic laboratories should thus be reviewed and integrated into the national public health infectious disease diagnostic laboratory system. This proposed model would improve cost-efficiency and allow a more appropriate approach to infectious disease outbreak investigation and control.