The Institute of Public Health in cooperation with the WHO on 25.1.2024 piloted the WHO tool for assessing the sustainability of laboratories, which aims to help countries in achieving a sustainable laboratory system in public health.

The importance of the use of the tool is to make an assessment of the sustainability of the laboratories and the result that is obtained provides guidance in the direction in which the efforts of a laboratory or a laboratory system should be directed in order to ensure a good sustainability of the functioning of the laboratories. It is a tool developed by the "Good Laboratories for Good Health" initiative of WHO Europe and the Netherlands Institute for Public Health (RIVM).

This first version of the tool will be piloted in several countries in different regions of the world and after receiving feedback from the laboratories/countries that it really detects the good ones as well as the places where the laboratory system needs improvement, it will be widely and publicly available.

Its application is voluntary and depends on the awareness of the laboratories/states of the need to use a standardized tool that will provide direction for the maintenance and further development of public health laboratories/laboratory systems in order to ensure an efficient national laboratory system.

It has been proven that the development of a modern healthcare system is impossible without the development of an efficient national laboratory system with implemented standards of biological safety and reliability and a quality system.