The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE National Reference Laboratory will move into a new, purpose-built facility at Oaks Field by the end of May, replacing operations long housed in a building dating back to the 1870s, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville said.

The move shifts the lab from the former Royal Victoria Hotel to a modern facility supported by the Inter-American Development Bank.

The new building cost just under $2 million to construct and forms part of a wider IDB-backed health systems programme involving several million dollars in investment.

National Reference Laboratory director Dr Indira Martin said the upgrade will improve working conditions and expand the lab’s capacity.

She also said the country lacked genetic sequencing capability during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since received equipment from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pan American Health Organisation, allowing the lab to carry out sequencing.

“We're currently sequencing for COVID-19 as well as influenza variants,” she said. “We're about to expand that to dengue to look at the various strains of dengue in country. More importantly, we're going to use this data to not only look at the strains, but to actually compile a picture of how viruses are moving through The Bahamas archipelago. That will allow us, from the policy standpoint, to be able to intervene, hopefully more readily should any virus come in country. So it provides greater epidemiological intelligence on the whole to the surveillance system.”

Dr Darville said the project has been in development for several years, with furniture on the way and equipment to be transferred from the current location.

“All the licenses have improved for this accredited lab, and we are finally in a place where our staff can grow and we can begin now to offer more services in the country,” he said.

“The national reference lab is very important for our country. We've been boasting of tourism in the excess of 12 million and that requires a lot of surveillance for airborne as well as water borne diseases.”

He said the transition will be phased to keep the lab operational.

“Dr Martin and her team to be in this facility by the end of May, the latest, all the licenses have been approved. The construction work is complete, and the process of moving from one location to the next is strategic, because you don't want to shut the lab down completely. So we're moving in phases so that the lab remains open while they are making a transition into this new space.”

Shirley Gayle, the IDB’s country representative to The Bahamas, said the bank is pleased with the project’s progress and its role in strengthening the country’s health system.

“We are anticipating very much the finalisation of the works and the full opening of the reference lab. The IDB is particularly pleased to have been able to support the people of The Bahamas in the strengthening of their health systems, and in putting in place critical health infrastructure such as this,” she said.