Partenariats de laboratoires : une approche pour la détection et la prévention des épidémies

As part of its work towards global health security the World Health Organization, and notably its Office in Lyon, has been assisting countries to improve the knowledge and skills of laboratory staff and provide them with structures and resources to enable them to play their proper role in the detection of, and response to, epidemics which threaten public health. This document presents a new partnership programme which could be established to improve public health laboratory capacity in developing countries in a sustainable manner. Indeed bringing together different organizations from different sectors has been shown to be an effective means of leveraging more resources and expertise to tackle public health problems. A model is proposed by which individual laboratories in developing countries partner with specialized institutions (usually but not only) in developed countries to undertake specific projects. A network linking these individual partnerships will oversee the projects, share experiences, check for gaps and duplications, highlight successes and “best practices”, and advocate for the partnerships.