The Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, in collaboration with the health laboratory strengthening team in Lyon and the WHO country office in Oman organized a four day training workshop on laboratory quality management systems. The objective of the workshop was to provide participants with the necessary information, guidelines and assessment tools to establish and strengthen laboratory quality management systems. A total of 24 participants from public health laboratories in 12 primarily Gulf Region countries attended the workshop.
The participants included laboratory directors, quality officers or senior technicians. The meeting was opened by the Omani Minister of Health and the Regional Director of the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean who highlighted the importance of laboratory under the IHR (2005). Following the workshop, participants were provided with a copy of the WHO laboratory assessment tool and requested to prepare an assessment of their laboratory within one month of the training to identify the main areas that need to be set up or strengthened. Once the assessments are finalized, the countries will be required to develop an action plan to implement the necessary changes. WHO will be available to assist with technical issues and to provide further training if requested.
