THE upgrading of the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRBL) at Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo to meet World Health Organisation standards is now 60% complete.
This was revealed during a tour on Wednesday when United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) civil engineer Yvonne Mpande was giving an update of the project status.
UNDP resident representative, Ayodele Odusola, permanent secretary for Presidential Affairs in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Tafadzwa Muguti, permanent secretary in the ministry of Skills, Audit and Development, Rudo Chitiga and permanent secretary for Devolution in Bulawayo, Paul Nyoni, among other government officials were present.
“So just to give you the current status of where we are, we are currently on the civil works right now and we are around 60% in terms of progress,” Mpande said.
Mpilo Hospital director of operations, Joel Charanga, said the project would boost the fight against TB.
“It's a flexible project which we are quite happy about. The overhead is going to be elevated to base level 3, which is the highest level in terms of TB testing on the continent,” Charanga said.
“And services will go beyond Bulawayo, beyond the southern region, beyond Zimbabwe and across Africa, which is a big plus for the nation as a whole.”
The facility will serve as a referral facility for the southern region of Zimbabwe.
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NTRBL performs specialised diagnostic testing for TB and COVID-19, disease surveillance, among others.
TB remains a public health emergency, with 30 000 people falling ill, and more 4 000 lives lost each day globally, despite it being both preventable and curable. In Zimbabwe, 16 300 TB cases were notified in 2021, from an estimated 30 000 incident cases.
