March 21, 2025 (Tumon, Guam) – From March 10-14, 2025, laboratory professionals from across the Pacific gathered at the Holiday Resort in Guam for the 2025 IATA Training of Trainers (TOT) & the 8th Annual Association of USAPI Laboratories (AUL) Meeting. This pivotal event focused on strengthening laboratory networks, enhancing biosafety compliance, and improving regional public health laboratory services.
Key Highlights from the Meeting:
- IATA TOT Training: Participants underwent rigorous sessions covering the 66th edition of the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations (DGR), with hands-on exercises in shipment handling, classification, and documentation to ensure safe and compliant transport of laboratory specimens.
- Mask Fit-Testing TOT: Experts led an in-depth demonstration and practice sessions on proper mask fit-testing for N95 respirators, crucial for biosafety compliance in island laboratories.
- Strengthening Laboratory Management Toward Accreditation (SLMTA) and LIS Updates: Sessions included critical discussions on ISO 15189 requirements, lab information management systems (LIS), and regional workforce development initiatives to enhance laboratory operations and accreditation readiness.
- Enhancement of Data Exchange in the USAPI Labs: Global Scientific Solutions for Health (GSSH) was contracted to assist with the enhancement of lab data exchange in the USAPI. To spearhead this effort, GSSH reviewed the current state of laboratory information systems (LIS) in existence or in development at the Guam Public Health Lab (GPHL), Palau, RMI and American Samoa labs. The assessment was completed in February 2025, and the findings with recommendations for implementation improvements, identification of needs, priorities, gaps, and potential challenges were shared with the USAPI lab managers at the meeting.
- Quality System Essentials (QSE) Benchmarking: Participants worked on standardizing quality benchmarks for medical and public health laboratories, shaping a roadmap for regional lab improvement from 2025-2030.
- Draft AUL Resolution for Laboratory Strengthening and AMR: AUL members discussed and drafted a resolution calling for the development of a five-year plan to improve USAPI public health and clinical laboratories, with a particular focus on lab-based AMR surveillance. The draft resolution also calls for each lab to hire, at a minimum, a Quality Manager and a Microbiology Technician, to enhance local lab capabilities and support regional lab-based surveillance and reporting. The draft AUL resolution will be submitted to PIHOA leadership for review and endorsement at its upcoming 76th Executive Board Meeting in late March 2025.
- Certifications and Certificates of Completion: Attendees successfully completed and received certifications/certificates of completion for IATA Shipping of Infectious Substances and Mask Fit-Testing TOT, as well as an AUL Meeting Workshop Certificate recognizing attendeesʻ overall competency achievement in all the critical topics covered during the AUL meeting.
Voices from the Field:
“I plan to apply what Iʻve learned from the IATA TOT training back in Yap to ensure that the current shippers are complying to the IATA regulations and to train the shippers who are not certified. Also, as part of the management team, we can do an annual report on how the documentation is going and if the shippers are complying and following the check list so we can avoid the errors in shipping.”
– Grace Lasaufmal, Laboratory Training Officer, Yap, Federated States of Micronesia
“All the training sessions were very informative, and it shows how some of the stuff we are doing back home are quite lacking in terms of organization, documentation, marking, labeling, all for shipping. So, I want to go back home and address those kinds of mistakes. I want to make sure that we can 100% deliver the best quality for our people.”
– Bremity Lakjohn Jr., Medical Laboratory Technologist, Majuro, Marshall Islands
Moving Forward:
As we work toward safer, more efficient, and compliant laboratories, the insights and collaborations from this meeting will continue to strengthen laboratory networks across the Pacific.
Stay tuned for more updates and upcoming training opportunities.
Read the Full E-Blast: https://conta.cc/4bS8hzE