CISA – the Health Research Centre of Angola hosted three graduate year students from the Methodist University Clinical Analysis and Public Health Degree in partnership with the NGO DW Angola in a program launched in February 2014. The interns gained the opportunity to participate in community based health projects, including studying cardiovascular risks, entering into contact with people within the context of their own neighbourhoods and undertaking tests measuring glycaemia, total cholesterol, triglyceride, creatinine and albumin levels.

Under the auspices of the Chronic Malnutrition project, the interns engaged in recruiting children aged between two and three to provide faeces samples for parasitological study and testing for cases of malaria and correspondingly applying laboratory techniques for diagnosis of intestinal parasitoses through microscope observations.

In the final phase of their internship, they came into contact with the organisation of the different facets and core skills held by clinical analysis laboratories, having collected samples by venipuncture and carried out the main laboratory techniques involved in not only hematologic, biochemical, parasitological and urinalysis studies but also quality control and critically analysing the results returned.

The internship was extended with the three participants making a final presentation sharing their experiences and the knowledge acquired in the meanwhile. Senior representatives from the DW non-governmental organisation were in attendance at this presentation session.