Liberia (West Africa) has witnessed Ebola outbreak 2014-16 which exposed fragile public health system in the country and highlighted the need for stronger and integrated public health laboratories (with sufficient biosafety and biosecurity systems in place) in order to ensure global health security. National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) is executive arm of Ministry of Health (MoH) in Liberia and there is one National Public Health reference laboratory (NPHRL) working under NPHIL, located in Monrovia, Liberia. However, 2nd Joint External Evaluation (JEE) 2023 of Liberia - conducted by WHO and partners gave biosafety and biosecurity (one of 19 technical areas) score of 1/5 which simple means Liberia needs strong biosafety and biosecurity safeguards in place to help overcome epidemics like Ebola etc.

This project (BLAM) complements JEE & does not replace it. Main purpose of this project is to develop and pilot a practical tool for identifying biosafety and biosecurity gaps in NPHRL at Monrovia (Liberia), create a facility-informed baseline for prioritizing limited resources, bring operational evidence and stakeholder perspectives in the country into one assessment and to define a responsible pathway for validation, targeted improvement and scale-up in other public health laboratories in the country.