Pacific Human and Animal Health Laboratory professionals have gathered in Lami for a week long workshop to assess current laboratory testing and specimen shipment procedures in relation to identifying and controlling priority epidemic disease.

The Head of Surveillance at the Secretariat of the Pacific community, Dr Tom Kiedrzynski said that Pandemic H1N1 reminded them how easily epidemic diseases can spread from country to country including the Pacific.

He said it is very important for the Pacific island countries to have access to laboratory tools to detect epidemic diseases such as dengue fever, influenza, typhoid fever and cholera quickly in order to minimize their health and socio-economic impact.