Laboratory services

About Our Laboratory Services

We are building laboratory infrastructure and promoting good laboratory practice for quality diagnosis of diseases in Nigeria and West Africa.

To provide the needed support for patient management, we provide structural upgrade, equipment and reagent supplies to health facilities we support. IHVN also ensures that personnel capacity is built through various trainings, and laboratory commodities are supplied regularly.

One of the services that IHVN has excelled in is supporting health facilities to provide HIV diagnosis for infants. IHVN has established 17 PCR laboratories and is currently overseeing five with automated capacity. They all support the National Infant Virological Testing programs and viral load testing.

IHVN also provided technical support and infrastructural upgrade (high through put automated systems for Real-Time Unbaised Pathogen Detection) for the establishment of a National Reference Laboratory in Gaduwa, Abuja, with funding from PEPFAR, through CDC.

This support to the National Reference Laboratory included procurement and installation of laboratory equipment and training and mentoring of laboratory personnel working at the biorepository/sample archiving laboratory.

At the National Reference Laboratory, IHVN has also set up and is managing a functional Mega laboratory for viral load and Infant Virological Testing. We are also supporting the process of getting the mega laboratory accredited to ISO 151 189

We established a Bio-Safety Level 3 Laboratory for diagnosis of Multi-Drug Resistant TB at the National TB Leprosy Training Center in Zaria in collaboration with the National Tuberculosis Leprosy Control Program (NTBLTCP) for TB diagnostic services. The laboratory supports the surveillance for drug-resistant tuberculosis. With support from the Global Fund, eight TB reference laboratories have also upgraded and activated.

The Institute oversees the activities at a network of three biorepositories in Abuja, Jos and Zaria all equipped to promote safe handling, receipt, processing, storage, inventory control, packaging and distribution of biological specimens, tissues and isolates (TB) with the goals of supporting research activities, public health evaluation studies, clinical trials and HIV associated malignant studies.

We also support laboratories to implement and maintain a Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement Program. This includes continuous monitoring, establishing both internal and external quality assessment programs (proficiency testing, audits, retesting), capacity building and laboratory accreditation. Plateau State Human Virology Research Center (PLASVIREC) laboratory achieved ISO 15189 in recognition of its international standard in 2018 while in 2019, National Quality Assessment Laboratory (NEQAL) Saye - Zaria, a Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria facility, supported by IHVN has achieved ISO 17043 International accreditation, the first of its kind in West Africa.

IHVN has continuously supported blood safety in Nigeria in collaboration with the National Blood Transfusion Service(NBTS). We promote voluntary donor recruitment and blood screening against transfusion transmissible infections of HIV, syphilis, Hepatitis B and C.

Clinical Laboratory Research: Overview | Laboratory Research Department

The Laboratory Research and Implementation Science Department focuses on the emergence of resistant forms of HIV and supports translational research. This includes research into how intervention(s) work in real-world settings and evaluation of new innovative technologies.

IHVN has a robust laboratory services team which has the capacity to carry out a variety of tests accredited by the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM). It is in the process of WHO Accreditation for HIV Drug Resistance Testing.

The laboratories supported by IHVN also have the capacity to carry out Drug Resistance Testing (DRT) and is a nationally recognized as a leader in this field. IHVN Drug Resistant laboratory has been endorsed by NASCAP-HIV/AIDS Division of the Federal Ministry of Health.

In the past three years, the sequencing laboratory has performed HIV drug resistant test for the PEPFAR ACTION PlusUp program, the Pan-African Studies to Evaluate Resistance (PASER) and Monitoring Antiretroviral Resistance among Children (MARCH) ongoing at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), the Department of Defense, Walter Reed Program and the US Military HIV Research Program.

The department also anchors implementation of laboratory research activities for the TRUST study, The Strategic Timing of Antiretroviral Treatment (START) study, NEUROAIDS study, Cryptococcal Antigenemia in Nigeria(CRANG) study, Monitoring Antiretroviral Therapy among Children (MARCH(MARCH/PASER) study and the Microbiome and Growth in HIV-Exposed but Uninfected Infants (MARGIN)study. It works closely with the molecular diagnostic unit, to provide viral load assays and molecular drug resistance determination to other IPs, private health facilities, and the government of Nigeria

The Department has three units, which are, Sequencing Unit, Implementation Science and Integration of Research Findings Unit and the Research Unit.

The Sequencing Unit

This unit handles the implementation of WHO HIV Drug Resistance Surveys. These are Acquired HIV Drug Resistance (ADR), Pre-treatment HIV Drug Resistance and Transmitted HIV Drug Resistance and surveillance of drug-resistance of drug-resistant HIV-1 among children <18 months in Nigeria.

As of June 2013, there were 31 laboratories located in 22 countries accredited by WHO for HIV Drug Resistant genotyping using plasma specimens. Five laboratories located in Brazil, two in Canada, the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHV-Nigeria) laboratory and the Russian Federation are working towards accreditation in 2014.

The Research Unit

The Research Unit provides laboratory support for the MARCH Study, the TRUST study, the MARGIN study, the Multidisciplinary Studies of HIV and Viral Hepatitis Co-infection and the START study. The MARCH-Nigeria study seeks to strengthen facilities that will be essential for paediatric HIV DR monitoring in our settings an access to treatment increases. This will provide the necessary information to develop appropriate national ART policies and assist in targeting and implementing drug resistance prevention strategies. The MARGINstudy is a longitudinal study of the impact of maternal microbiota on changes in infants' gastrointestinal microbiota during the first 24 months of life among 150 HIV-exposed uninfected children (HIV-EU) and 150 HIV-unexposed children. The TRUSTstudy is a longitudinal prospective cohort study that employs a behavioral survey as well as clinical evaluations to measure HIV and STI incidences of, and determine the best practices for, engaging Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) into prevention and care services. The START study is a multi-country, randomized study funded by the NIH through the insight network.

The Implementation Science and Integration of Research Finding Unit

This unit is responsible for carrying out the CRANG Study which is a study on Cryptococcal Antigenemia in Nigeria and evaluation of point of care assays for CD4, hematology, chemistry and HIV Drug Resistant mutations for point of care testing.