Laboratories

Sept. 17, 2024

Accurately diagnosing diseases and identifying new pathogens requires high-quality, effective laboratory systems - both to protect global health and to prevent threats from reaching the United States.

What We Do

Person wearing personal protective equipment in a lab setting holding lab equipment. — Laboratorian in Kazakhstan working to strengthen lab capabilities.

As a global leader in this field, CDC's experts provide training, technical support, and innovative tools to build and strengthen public health laboratory capacity so that dangerous pathogens can be detected and contained at the source.

For example:

We are helping build capacity by strengthening countries' ability to test for pathogens. As a result, countries can accurately confirm outbreaks and begin responses more rapidly, preventing their spread.
Across the globe, our experts leverage their global laboratory expertise to provide technical support to host countries during emergencies.
We are on the ground in countries training networks of laboratory professionals who can conduct testing, analyze findings, manage data, and protect against biosafety and biosecurity threats.
We collaborate with Ministries of Health and other partners, working closely to ensure that improvements are measurable, impactful, and sustainable.
We lead implementation of lab advancements, such as genome sequencing. These advancements have improved the availability of data on the global stage, which, in turn, allows us to monitor worldwide disease trends, detect patterns early, and prepare for potential threats before they reach the U.S.

Impact

CDC's global health security experts have provided laboratory-related training to more than 12,000 lab professionals in over 40 countries, allowing them to better detect and contain health threats before they can spread.
CDC successfully introduced more than 600 new diagnostic tests in 70 countries, which improved disease detection capability.
In 2024 alone, CDC's Division of Global Health Protection supported 39 countries to enhance their laboratory platforms, enabling them to rapidly identify and detect emerging pathogens.