Photos of the EU Mobile Lab in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
One of three laboratory units of the EU Mobile Labs Project has been handed over to the Institute of Lassa Fever Research and Control (ILFRC) at the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) in Nigeria in February 2014 and scientists of the ILFRC have been trained in the deployment and use of the unit in Germany and Nigeria. These scientists, together with the coordinator of the project and one colleague from the BNITM, prepared the unit for the diagnostic mission and deployed it.
First the team set up the lab in Enugu, where they tested suspected samples. Then the lab unit was moved to Port Harcourt where again patient samples where tested.
The concept of the laboratory and the training of scientists from Nigeria and Europe successfully paid off to help in outbreak response and management following the request by the Nigerian Ministry of Health and the WHO.