Post COVID-19: Advancing Medical Laboratory Service Integration in Nigeria and Progress Towards Establishing Integration Guideline.

Background: The Nigerian healthcare system, including medical laboratories, operates in a three-tiered structure across public and private sectors. Lessons from COVID-19 show the urgent need for a guideline to drive medical laboratory service integration.

Problem: Lack of operational guideline to drive the integration of laboratory services has resulted in siloed operations across different medical laboratories causing duplication of resources, coordination issues, and inefficiencies.

COVID-19 impact on Nigeria's national blood service commission - Lessons for Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

Background: In February 2020, Nigeria officially announced its first case of COVID-19. As numbers rose, government-led non-pharmaceutical interventions such as lockdowns, curfews, restrictions on mass gatherings and other physical distancing measures ensued, negatively affecting blood donor mobilisation activities.

Objectives: We aimed to assess the blood service activities across 17 National Blood Service Commission (NBSC) centres in Nigeria, including number of blood donations, mobile blood drives, blood units screened, screening outcomes, number of hospitals NBSC provided services to and number of blood units discarded over the study period.