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Yoliswa Dube-Moyo, Matabeleland South Bureau Chief

The country’s devolution agenda has resulted in a big score for the veterinary services department in Matabeleland South province which is this week expected to open doors to its own laboratory in Gwanda.

The decentralisation of veterinary laboratory testing services is set to improve efficiency and turnaround time of sample results.

All seven districts in the province are expected to benefit from the laboratory which was set up through the aid of various development partners.

Previously, the provincial veterinary services department would send samples to Harare which was costly and time consuming.

Matabeleland South provincial veterinary services director Dr Enat Mdlongwa said the decentralised laboratory should have taken effect at the beginning of March.

“We’ll be having a technologist coming to run our laboratory. I expect to have a discussion with him on when we will start receiving samples from our districts and other people around us,” said Dr Mdlongwa.

He said before, the department had to run an account with a courier service which would send samples to Harare.

“We would get the results after a week to two weeks when the animal would’ve died and still trying to figure out what could’ve been the problem. It was a problem having to have a centralised laboratory. The cost was very high as we had to pay a courier service to move our samples up and down, from here (Gwanda) up to Harare. I’m really excited that we will be able to get the samples done in our office and get the results instantly or in a day or two and a decision is made for the good of the livestock industry in this country, specifically in the province,” said Dr Mdlongwa.

He continued: “Our development partners have been working on our laboratory since last year and the laboratory is now ready to be opened. This is one example of the successes of the devolution policy. The veterinary services have scored big in our campaign of becoming a devolved economy. The decentralisation of veterinary laboratory services will mean that our diagnosis will be prompt. We won’t need to send samples to Harare for testing as we’ll be able to do them here in Gwanda. It would be quite the phenomenal kind of technology. When you talk of medicine, we’re not prophets who should be telling what an animal is suffering from. The use of the laboratory is going to improve our efficiency; it will improve the time we take before we tell the farmer what their animal is suffering from. It’s quite a marvellous programme and we would like to thank our superiors who saw the need for the decentralisation of testing services,” said Dr Mdlongwa.

He said the laboratory would be functional by the end of the week. @Yolisswa