Workshop on external competence assessment and national competence assessment for malaria microscopists (‎ECAMM and NCAMM)‎

The workshop on external competence assessment and national competence assessment for malaria microscopists (ECAMM and NCAMM) was convened virtually on 24–25 June 2021.

Organized by the malaria unit, CDS-SEARO, it brought together more than 70 participants from 10 South East-Asia (SEA) Region countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste – including representatives from the national malaria control programmes and heads of laboratories, focal points from countries as well as technical experts and partners, to review the current status of microscopy trainings and microscopy quality assurance (QA) as a whole. Technical experts and WHO collaborating centres (CC) shared updates, standard operating

procedures (SOP) and best practices.

The main points of discussion included the microscopy QA status per country, challenges to continuing the proficiency trainings given the pandemic situation since last year, slide banks, external competency assessment programme, setting up a national reference laboratory (NRL) as a prerequisite for elimination and support from WHO.