In order to fight against dengue fever in Solomon Island, the Government of the Republic of China(Taiwan) has worked in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Medical Service, Solomon Island to build up the first bio-safety level 2(BSL-2) laboratory equipped with high standard equipments at National Referral Hospital (NRH) in Honiara .
To bring the Dengue Fever Lab into full operation, a dengue specialist team led by Dr. Ruby Jih-Jin Tsai, from Taiwan’s Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital (KMUH) visited the NRH to fine tune the precision instruments. The team is composed of three medical technicians, Mr. Po-Chih Chen, Ping-Chang Lin and Hong-Chi Wang as well as a nurse Mr. Eddy Yu-Chau Line. With the cooperation of NRH and that of Taiwan Health Center led by Sophie Yu-Hsuan Wang, the team has successfully operated the lab after two weeks hard efforts.
Together with WHO Representative in Solomon Island, Ms. Audry Aumua, Ambassador Victor Te-Sun Yu from R.O.C.(Taiwan) also visited the laboratory at the NRH. Representative Aumua admired the vital contribution of Taiwan toward Solomon in medical aids, and wished to strengthen the medical cooperation via the usage of the lab.
This specialized laboratory is not only for dengue virus, but also can be applied to identify other viral infections. Associated personnel training will be followed in the future to keep it under good usage condition. It will empower the clinicians for more accurate and in-time diagnosis and aid in good care with better outcomes.
