Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
It is a great honour for me to be here to officially designate the Botswana National HIV Reference Laboratory at the National Health Laboratory as a WHO Collaborating Centre for HIV Drug Resistance and other diagnostic testing.
In addition to HIV, the centre's mandate will include diseases such as viral hepatitis, sexual transmitted infections, tuberculosis, cancer, and emerging and re-emerging diseases.
This new WHO collaborating centre joins a network of over 50 collaborating centres globally supporting WHO's HIV programme, and many others working on drug resistance more broadly.
We are grateful for the support of the Government of Botswana and we look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration with one of the region's leading laboratories.
Botswana has already demonstrated great success in the HIV response and is a model for many countries.
Botswana is a leader among high burden countries in the African region and globally, thanks to its consistent political leadership and financial commitment to end AIDS as a public health threat.
It was certified by WHO for reaching the silver tier on the path to eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV in 2021, and in 2022 it reached the 95-95-95 targets for testing, treatment and viral suppression - one of only five countries to do so.
This lab was also the first, globally, to detect the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
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I commend the lab and the government of Botswana for sharing these findings with WHO and the world, although we regret the consequences that happened due to your transparency.
This is the type of leadership we look for in WHO collaborating centres.
The strategic use of collaborating centres in countries dates back to the founding of WHO, and in fact the practice began decades before.
The idea of using national institutions for international purposes started with the League of Nations, when laboratories were first designated as reference centres for the standardization of biological products.
And in 1949, the Second World Health Assembly established the policy that has applied ever since: that WHO should not establish its own research institutions, but utilize the expertise and capacity of top research institutions all over the world, like this one.
Over the decades, the number of collaborating centres has grown, along with the scale of their commitments to WHO's programmes.
Today there are more than 800 collaborating centres in more than 80 Member States.
However, the number of collaborating centres in African countries remains small: as of 2023, there are only 25.
Increasing this number and, with it, ensuring a more balanced geographical distribution, is a priority. We need more African institutions to join this global network, to contribute globally.
Congratulations to Botswana on joining this global network. This is an important milestone on the road to the Africa we all want - a healthier, safer and fairer Africa.
I look forward to working with this institution very closely.
I thank you.
