**4. Challenges and way forward for medical laboratory practice in COVID-19 era**

There is no doubt that COVID-19 is new and so are the technologies for testing and research. COVID-19 era is filled with operational differences between the medical laboratory developed protocols and new commercial consumables protocols following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the implementation of those new protocols is challenging and requires continuous training for the laboratory staff [12]. Another challenge is limited access to COVID -19 reagents. This restricted the number of testing of citizens to those that were having symptoms or at risk as there is fear of exhausting the limited COVID-19 reagents and consumables. In the testing proper, there is delayed


**Table 1.**

*Challenges and way forward for medical laboratory practice in COVID-19 era.*

outbreak detection and reporting of COVID -19 cases maybe due to distance from testing and collection sites and the technicalities involved. Also there is limited access to clinically validated or regulatory approved molecular and serologic tests either through the WHO network, national regulators or through commercial manufacturers [13, 14].

As COVID-19 ravages the world, there are shortages and difficulties in importing large diagnostic kits in the country. There is also poor knowledge and research capacity on COVID-19. Aside from technical difficulties associated with COVID-19 testing, certain seasonal changes might equally affect the number of tests [9]. **Table 1** discusses the challenges and way forward towards offering COVID-19 medical laboratory services.
