One of the ANDEMIA sentinel sites is Guiglo, a small city of about 114.000 inhabitants in the western part of Côte d’Ivoire, at a distance from Bouaké of about 400km. The local Centre Hospitalier Regional (CHR) is one of the rare hospitals in the western part of the country with a catchment area of about 30.000 km² and a consultation rate of about 25.000 patients per year. To date lab diagnostics is limited to Malaria, HIV and microscopy of parasites. Bacteriological diagnostics was not possible so far.

The reconstruction and extension of the existing rooms established the basic conditions for the implementation of the microbiological diagnostics. Construction began in September 2016 and was already completed in November 2016. Essential equipment and laboratory materials have been purchased and set-up as well. With the implementation of bacteriological diagnostics CHR Guiglo now is well suited to serve as a sentinel site for the ANDEMIA project. Reconstruction and equipment was funded by the Federal Ministry of Health (Global Health Protection Programme, project ARGOS).

Next step will be a training of laboratory technicians from the CHR Guiglo in microbiological laboratory techniques to enable them to run essential diagnostics. A workshop focussing on blood culture and antimicrobial resistance testing is planned to take place in May 2017.