catching pace

While I've spent the last week complaining about not having enough work to do, karma decided to make it up to me by giving me an avalanche of responsibilities today.

Went to Kalingalinga Lab today-- one of the 3 clinical labs in the country that provide infant diagnostic services for HIV/AIDS. All 3 of their EPICS machines-- these big (normally) whirring boxes that measure CD4 counts from whole blood samples...

...and I can already tell the explanation of that story is going to be really long and boring. In a nutshell, there are maybe 6 of these CD4 machines in the country (no one's even sure), 3 are at Kalingalinga, and all of them have been broken for a month. The maintenance guy from the manufacturer who flew in from South Africa to fix them got a life-threatening disease (unclear) upon arrival and is currently still hospitalized. Meanwhile, 800 samples are coming in every day from around the country and can't be CD4-tested. This means that, when walking around the lab, there are trays fulls of vials of blood crowding basically every flat surface of the lab. Some are open (BIOHAZARD!) and probably 80% aren't refrigerated.

That means 800 patients who actually made it to the clinic, agreed to get CD4-tested to test for the progress of their HIV-infection, are not going to get test results. As if it's not hard enough to get patients to agree to get tested for HIV, and THEN have these people trek through the rural Zambian countryside to come back to the clinic to get their results-- now when they arrive, they'll hear that their test is null. Or just never hear back at all. Oh, and according to national guidelines, physicians aren't supposed to give antiretroviral therapy without CD4 percentages in the patient.

My boss's reaction-- understandably appalled. Her response: If there's anything we can do by giving them money, DO IT.

Mixed feelings on the results.


Also, there's been an ebola outbreak in the Congo.