Imtiaz Ali
Senior laboratory specialist, having laboratory strengthening experiences in resource poor settings nationally & internationally with international health NGOs.
Location Islamabad, Pakistan
Activity
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Looking forward to other future similar laboratory courses,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Special thanks and high regards to all of you who have developed this course for us. Love you all, God bless you all and protect you from COVID-19 and all other diseases, test, test, test,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
I am grateful to FIND, ASLM & LSHTM, educators, mentors for developing and giving access to this course free of charge. Its wonderful. We must continue to learn each other after this course, this process should not stop. My suggestion to FIND, ASLM & LSHTM and global laboratory leaders to develop and access a platform where laboratory professionals from LMICs...
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Test, test, test, national laboratory policies & strategic plan, laboratory network capacity building, laboratory strengthening-------These are the lessons, labs in LMICs see and experience during every outbreak. Labs in LMICs must work on these to face COVID-19 & other outbreaks in the future.
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Testing kits, equipment are being imported
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Thanks, laboratory data collection are being used for surveillance, supply chain and quality management,
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Interesting,
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Immunity passport is difficult due to unclear of how long the antibodies would protect the recovered patients,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
In LMICs, thousands of COVID-19 lab tests perform on daily basis, am not sure, all these are PCR tests, many of them or most of them are RDTs (immunoassays) and WHO doesn't recommend to use them for patient care?
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According to current guidelines, WHO doesn't recommend RDTs for patient care, these can be used for epidemiological and surveillance purpose or where there is no PCR facility, research will further make it clear about when to use RDTs, on which sample types etc.
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
As FIND & WHO are evaluating the performance of these immunoassays, in future there would be more clarity about these techniques sensitivity, specificity, TAT, sample type. To respond COVID-19, US FDA, FIND, WHO & CDC have given emergency use authorization of some of these techniques,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Good information, looks in near future there would be more clarity about using immunoassays for COVID-19 testing,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Covid-19 Immunoassays, ELISA & RDT (IgM & IgG)
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Nice presentation and good learning,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Good reading on immunoasaays, ELISA, RDTs, POCTs,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
I am excited starting the last week,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Great learning, I am revisiting week-2 steps, copy pasting and down loading the references and reading materials for future reading and learning and training. My humble request to educators and mentors of this course is: Under the platform of FIND, WHO or any other relevant organization this initiative should be continue, should not be stopped. This learning...
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Imtiaz Ali replied to Heidi Albert
@HeidiAlbert Thanks for this nice course,
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Imtiaz Ali replied to Anafi Mataka
@AnafiMataka As week-3 still close, am reviewing again the course materials. All course materials are highly valuable and impressive, congrats to team members of this course!
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@CassandraKelly-Cirino Listened video again, its very helpful, thanks,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Thanks a lot to educators and mentors of this course, timely, informative and interesting course. As number of confirmed cased increases every day with number of deaths and at the same time testing capacity also increased.
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Nice FAQs,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Yes, COVID-19 outbreak makes it more difficult to ensure the quality, main challenges are staff, supplies like kits and PPEs. Staff working hours extending and reducing or eliminating routine and basic holidays and extra compensation to motivate them. For supplies depends on the suppliers/government department in case your are working in a public lab
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Quality control & EQA strategies: Usually labs in LMICs lack of LQMS, a few labs in private sector implement LQMS in main cities. Community health labs in rural areas are lacking QC & EQA. One can see poor & partly implementation of QC & EQA in TB labs. In general clinical labs for routine tests one can rarely see QMS. Quality is not free, need to purchase...
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Lack of resources in LMICs rural labs make it highly challenging, verification and validation, therefore these procedures can be performed at NRLs & provincial levels. At community labs accuracy can be ensured through EQA & IQC testing.
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Validation & verification studies in LMIC labs: First & foremost need is to train the lab professionals who are responsible of their labs tests validation & verification. These are complex technical procedures, needed confidence to perform.
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Good explanation
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Nice topic to learn, I would request to educators & mentors of this course to provide the participant all these lessons in a guidelines, SOPs or a manual. PPV & NPV, very important to know more about these topics for senior lab professionals,
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I would recommend Cephied Gene Expert Express, this platform is already with national TB program, local distributor available for the provision of kits and technical support. Its automated, all the steps integrated and no contamination.
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Good learning, monopoly of in country distributors of manufacturers is one constraints, when there is shortages of kits, you cant perform the tests and your clients and patients will be frustrated while waiting their test results.
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Good guidance, would be more practical if the trainers develop these guidelines step by step as molecular testing manual,
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@DevyEmperador all these guidelines needed step by step as SOPs
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3 separate areas, reagents prep, sample inactivation and extraction and amplifications is challenging in LMICs,
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@DavidM You are right David but availability of resources are always challenge in LMICs,
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Ensuring quality is challenging while working with open molecular platform,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Manual molecular testing is challenging, provision of 3 separate areas, this is why this service system usually centralized, automated molecular system is a nice option, easy to operate, no contamination fear,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Laboratory bio-safety, nicely documented guidelines, explaining each step, risk assessment, training, disinfectant, waste management, occupational health & safety.
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In case of sample transportation triple packaging system is an issue, this item is lacking in almost every where,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Great, looking forward to week-2, molecular testing
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Learning through week-1 is great, highly interesting & informative, I went through 19 topics, each topic is highly informative. I congrats all the educators and mentors of this course and looking forward to week-2.
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As with other outbreaks in the past, availability of COVID-19 testing kits, sampling swabs and other consumables will be hard to get. LMICs worry only during outbreaks & epidemics & then forget it.
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Great learning with global diagnostic community
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Different testing methods for COVID-19 are available but molecular testing is more sensitive, again in molecular testing, most of the available techniques are manual, this needed appropriate infrastructure, human resource and supplies. For effective testing program lab and health facilities mapping would be effective option, appropriate labs and facilities can...
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
There is big impact of COVID-19 epidemic to other disease programs. LMICs have already scare resources, health care providers main attention during these days on COID-19. Essential lab testing including for TB, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other infectious diseases must continue without interruption. Laboratory surge capacity should be activated, routine timing...
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Existing disease programs such as TB, HIV/AIDS & Malaria could be collaborated to respond to COVID-19. Gene Expert is already there with several TB & HIV/AIDS facilities, these automated analyzer could be used for COVID-19 testing, only COVID-19 testing cartridges can be purchased, software can be installed in Gene Expert, staff can be trained and they can...
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Laboratory testing emerged as a major issue during this COVID pandemic, lack of testing kits and PPEs are major items, countries are facing badly. Coordination at each level is necessary to get these supplies, district, provincial, national or even regional & international level coordination among MOHs, INGOs and others.
Countries must be careful all the time... -
Its a nice guidelines, step by step documented procedures about establishing and scaling up COVID-19 testing.
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Like other LMICs, testing kits for COVID-19 and PPEs were lacking in Pakistan, but now these items have been provided. Countries should be prepared all times to respond by health/laboratory network strengthening. Perhaps we will learn from this and will be prepared for the future.
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
MOHs of LMICs must have their approved policies and procedures about accepting equipment & supplies & the donor agencies should follow these policies and SOPs, otherwise several costly equipment lying and rusting without utilization. Another challenge is lack of the capacity of regulating agencies, LMICs need to build the capacities of their regulatory bodies...
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Strengthening of national laboratory network with specimens referral system is critical to respond COVID-19 & all other outbreaks, also closely involving labs in surveillance system,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Prioritization and then testing in LMICs
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Course contents look nice and easy to follow, nice introductory video, its transcripts in PDF, well designed,
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Hello every one, I am Imtiaz Ali from Islamabad Pakistan, I am a senior laboratory specialist, who has lead the laboratory strengthening projects in Pakistan, Afghanistan & Tajikistan with international health NGOs & currently working as a freelance lab consultant. I am interested to work in global health labs & laboratory response in pandemics and epidemics....
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Imtiaz Ali made a comment
Congrats & many thanks to FIND, ASLM & LSHTM for developing this course. I am excited to learn about COVID-19 diagnostic testing in LMICs.
Imtiaz Ali, Islamabad, Pakistan
