Health Minister receives Bahrain’s National Influenza Centre team

Minister of Health, Dr. Jaleela bint Al-Sayed Jawad Hassan, has stressed the importance of developing national capabilities in order to achieve the reference vision for public health laboratories, increase their capacity and use the necessary technologies at all levels.

She also urged more efforts to continue success in contributing to global efforts to combat influenza viruses.

The minister was speaking while meeting Bahrain’s National Influenza Centre, led by Chief of the Public Health Lab, Amjad Ghanem Zayed, following the Centre’s success in winning the World Health Organisation (WHO) Award for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, in recognition of its continuous participation in supporting surveillance activities and the exchange of influenza viruses with collaborating centres over the past two years (2021-2022).

The minister expressed thanks and appreciation to Bahrain’s National Influenza Centre’s team for the tremendous efforts they have exerted over the previous years in the areas of Virological surveillance and response.

The WHO award was announced at the conclusion of the third scientific conference and the sixth meeting of the Acute Respiratory Infection Surveillance Network in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, which was held in the Sultanate of Oman

The WHO award also recognised the centre’s active role and contributions, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, in supporting surveillance activities and the exchange of influenza viruses with centers collaborating with the Geneva-based organisation.

The aim was to ramp up surveillance of influenza and other emerging respiratory diseases and optimise the use of data to prepare control programmes and conduct research related to influenza and other respiratory viruses.

Established in 2011 in the public health laboratories, the National Influenza Centre was accredited as a national center for influenza and a member of the Global Network for Influenza Surveillance and Export (GISRS) by the World Health Organization in 2012.

The centre, an offshoot of the Health Ministry, was approved after it passed all the quality requirements specified in the international standards, and participated in the external quality assessment programs (EQAP) provided by the World Health Organization through the GISRS network,

The accreditation was renewed in 2018, after a delegation of WHO experts visited the center to verify the continuity of the implementation of the requirements and passing all local and international quality requirements.

Source: Bahrain News Agency