Vaccine Production: West African Scientists Converge in Ghana April 20

Medical Laboratory and Research Scientists from across West Africa will on April 20 converge in Accra, Ghanaian to deliberate on how West Africa can build needed local capacity for the manufacturing of vaccines and other medical products in the sub-region.

The 8th annual conference, tagged CelebrateLAB West Africa 2022, will hold in Alisa Hotel in Accra, Ghana from April 20 to 21 this year. 
It will bring together 150 onsite delegates and hundreds of virtual participants from across the West Africa sub region.

Participants will comprise medical laboratory and research professionals, academia, regulators, policy makers, and medical product manufacturers and suppliers.

With the theme, “Ensuring Diagnostic Capability and Vaccine Sufficiency as Panacea to Combating Infectious Diseases in West Africa”, will focus on building laboratory capacity in the area of human resources, clinical research and vaccine and other medical products manufacturing in West Africa.
In a press statement its Spokesperson Efam Dovi signed, the former President of Liberia, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is expected to deliver the keynote address.
It is to stress the need to strengthen health systems across West Africa by applying the lessons learnt from the current COVID-19 pandemic and previous disease outbreaks, to prepare the region’s health systems beyond the current pandemic. 
Ghana’s Minister of Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu is the special guest of honour. 
Other speakers will include eminent scientists from Nigeria such as Air Cdre. Edward Akinwale, Laboratory Quality Assurance Manager, Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF), Nigeria; Prof. James Damen, National President Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria.
The list also has Dr. Mohammed Abdulaziz, Director Division of Disease Control and Prevention, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC); Blessing Ekanem Udoh, Medical Laboratory Specialist, National Professional Officer Laboratory World Health Organisation (WHO) Nigeria; and Prof. Adeola Oluboyo Professor of Chemistry Pathology Department of Medical Laboratory Science, Afe Babalola University.

Other Nigerian speakers are: Prof. Oluyemi Akinloye a professor of Clinical Chemistry and Molecular Diagnosis and  dean, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences College of Medicine of the University of Lagos; Mad. Ellen Munemo, Team Lead, Infectious Disease Detection and Surveillance (IDD) and Paul Eniola Oluniyi Research Fellow African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), Redeemer’s University.

CelebrateLAB West Africa 2022 is being organised by Africabio Enterprises Inc in collaboration with the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists.

It is co-hosted by the Ghana Health Service under the distinguished leadership of its Director General, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, and the Akai House Clinic, with support from the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria.