Award to the residents of Kostanay

September 22, 2023

On September 22, at the National Forum of Laboratory Medicine in Astana, the President of the Public Association of the Federation of Laboratory Medicine, Zh. N. Suleymanova presented the diagnostic laboratory of the Kostanay Regional Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS with the award "Best Laboratory Award of Kazakhstan".

The laboratory at the Kostanay Regional AIDS Center was organized in 1994. Then there were 3 employees working in it. Up to 10,000 HIV tests were performed here annually. Since 1999, the range of studies has expanded - studies on parenteral hepatitis, syphilis, toxoplasmosis, candidiasis and STIs have been added. In 2002, the laboratory began conducting clinical, biochemical and immunological studies for people living with HIV, and in 2014, a polymerase chain reaction department was opened, where research is carried out using the most sensitive and specific method of modern diagnostics. Since 2020, the laboratory has implemented the laboratory information system K-lab for the translation of documentation from paper to electronic format.

Over the years, the material and technical base has been created and improved, modern diagnostic equipment has been equipped, qualified personnel has been formed. Over the past years, the Laboratory has been a participant in international external quality assessment programs for serological and molecular studies on HIV.

In 2021, a lot of work was done to organize the management system in accordance with modern standards, which allowed the laboratory in 2022 to receive accreditation for compliance with the requirements of the standard ST RK ISO 15189-2015 (KZ.M.11.E1270).

The diagnostic laboratory has highly qualified personnel, modern automated equipment and the potential for further improvement of the laboratory service of the region. In terms of HIV diagnosis, the capacity is up to 1,500 studies per day. The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) department is equipped with a modern Cobas 4800 automatic PCR platform for HIV RNA isolation and viral loading.

Today, the main task of the diagnostic laboratory is to conduct laboratory diagnostics of HIV infection in accordance with the National HIV Diagnosis Algorithm approved in the Republic of Kazakhstan, providing the maximum range of laboratory diagnostic services to patients and key population groups, as well as ensuring the quality of laboratory procedures, in accordance with the requirements of the standard ST RK ISO 15189-2015, for which the diagnostic laboratory of the center all conditions have been created to comply with the accreditation criteria and provide all the necessary resources for this.      
Congratulations to our colleagues on the well-deserved award!

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