The halls of Uganda’s National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory rang with a quiet but powerful sense of accomplishment last week as the third cohort of the Regional External quality assurance( EQA) mentorship of NTRL and NTP Managers from seven (7) countries; Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi, kenya, Guinea Bissau, Zimbabawe and Ethiopian. Building Training programme reached its closing day thus marking the end of an intensive, transformative hands-on training experience for laboratory professionals drawn from across the African continent.
A Cohort Built for Impact
Cohort 3 brought together laboratory managers, EQA coordinators, and TB programme officers from multiple African countries – each arriving at NTRL with existing skills, and each leaving with something more: a deeper understanding of quality systems, a sharper eye for diagnostic accuracy, and a strengthened network of peers committed to the same mission of ending tuberculosis.
Throughout the programme, participants engaged in rigorous hands-on training covering the full spectrum of EQA competencies that define quality TB laboratory practice:
- External quality assessment panel preparation, distribution, and evaluation
- TB smear microscopy EQA – reading, grading, and feedback systems
- GeneXpert MTB/RIF EQA procedures and troubleshooting
- Truenat and PlusLife near point-of-care EQA integration
- Drug susceptibility testing quality assurance protocols
- Laboratory quality management systems and ISO 15189 principles
- Data management, reporting, and feedback to participating laboratories
- Implementation planning – taking EQA systems back to their home countries
More Than Technical Skills
What makes NTRL’s EQA training distinctive is not just the technical content but it is the environment in which that content is delivered. Participants trained in real laboratory conditions, on real equipment, supervised by NTRL’s expert trainers who have spent years building and running one of Africa’s most respected TB EQA programmes.
The connections formed between participants and laboratory professionals from different countries, different health systems, and different contexts are themselves a form of capacity building. A network of EQA-trained professionals across Africa, each supporting the other, each anchored to the same quality standards, is exactly the kind of distributed infrastructure that makes regional TB control possible.
What Happens Next
The closing day was not an ending – it was a beginning. Each participant returns to their national programme carrying the tools, the knowledge, and the confidence to strengthen EQA systems in their own laboratories and networks. NTRL will continue to provide technical support, proficiency testing panels, and ongoing quality assurance guidance to all cohort graduates through the SRL network.
For Uganda SRL/NTRL, Cohort 3 represents another step in a long-term commitment as building the human infrastructure that quality TB diagnostics across Africa depends on, one cohort, one laboratory professional, one country at a time.
Congratulations to all Cohort 3 graduates. The work continues.
Uganda SRL/NTRL provides regional EQA capacity building training as part of its mandate as a WHO-designated Supranational TB Reference Laboratory. For more information, dont hesitate to contact training@ntrl.or.ug | info@ntrl.or.ug or call toll free 0800-100-066.
