The NICD represents the South African laboratory support for global programmes such as those of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as well as providing global public health services in the form of a collaborating or regional reference laboratory for the WHO.
We are also responsible for having established cooperative agreements with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH/NIAID), as well as the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) and other internationally recognised institutions.
Striving to become a significant role player in the area of communicable diseases, the NICD provides the global health community with valuable infectious disease information and research, deriving from a continent with some of the most important sources of new emerging infectious diseases.
The NICD is also available to the African continent as a necessary research laboratory and institutional resource. Diagnostic services, provision of reagents and biological materials as well as the NICD training facilities are made available to fellow African countries, in order to strengthen the current African surveillance laboratory network.