The Tanzania Medical Device (MSD) has met with laboratory experts who are the Managers of laboratories in Regional, Special, Zone and National Referral Hospitals. The three-day meeting in Dar es Salaam aims to assess the availability and quality of laboratory health products distributed to health care facilities in the country.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting, the Director General of MSD, Mavere Tukai, told participants to use the three days planned to ensure that they come up with solutions to the challenges that arise in this laboratory sector.

“We can use this Laboratory Sector to be commercial and increase the income of our hospitals while improving the services provided through this laboratory sector” said Mavere.

Mavere added that what we want is to have a common procedure and transparency because without doing so, there are people who will not understand if a certain product is available in a certain area. We want to reduce the situation of reagents expiring before being used, while there are areas that were needed but they were not aware of it.

The Acting Government Pharmacist, Msafiri Chiwanga, said the government has continued to invest in diagnostic machines to ensure that patients are given the right treatment based on the disease they are suffering from through laboratory specialists.

Chimwaga added that, following the challenges of drug resistance in some pathogens, laboratory specialists are being mentioned as a help in ensuring that the treatment given to the patient is compatible with the disease in question and this is after the results of tests through diagnostic machines.