By Neo Kolane
The African Society for Laboratory Medicine is currently holding a five-day consultative workshop at Thaba Bosiu.
The conference started yesterday (Mon) and ends on Friday.
The acting director of programmes at the African Society for Laboratory Medicine, Dr Talkmore Maruta, said the meeting seeks to examine Lesotho’s legislation on biosafety and biosecurity with a view to strengthen the sector.
Dr Maruta said Lesotho does not have laws that specifically address the war spectrum of biosafety and biosecurity and there was need to come up with such legislation.
“The war spectrum of both are scattered in different places. Some people talk about gems and others about export of goods but there is no law or legislation that specifically addresses the issue of biosafety or biosecurity comprehensively,” he said.
The Society was working with member states such as Lesotho to develop laws governing the two areas.
“We started two years ago first to develop a legislative framework as a region and we agreed on what should be contained in biosecurity or biosafety law if Lesotho is to develop one.
“We collected all the related legislation that are in Lesotho and our legal team from Africa CDC reviewed it and a detailed report on that will be released soon,” Dr Maruta said.
He said that the COVID-19 pandemic had awakened the world to the need to deal with dangerous pathogens that almost caused almost a total shutdown of the globe. Pathogens are organisms or agent that can produce disease. They may also be referred to infectious agents, or simply germs.
This demonstrated that pathogens know no boundaries and countries needed to work collectively to control them.
“If not dealt with properly, they lead to bioterrorism and release of the pathogens to the community ends up in epidemics and pandemic,” Dr Maruta said.
