Prof. Ama Vickie : “That the Biochemistry Laboratory be recognised in the sub-region too »

Head of the Biochemistry Laboratory at the Yaounde University Hospital and also president of the Scientific Committee of the Cameroonian Clinical Biology Days, she reviews the main thrusts of these meetings held in Yaounde from 2 to 4 May 2023 and reveals the various challenges that fall to her on a daily basis.

The Cameroonian Society of Clinical Biology organised its 2nd Scientific Days from 02 to 04 May 2023. How did it go?
The Cameroonian days of clinical biology were a real challenge for us. After the first days which took place in May 2019, not having been able to organise the 2nd in 2021, with the pandemic at COVID, we said to ourselves that it was time to plan the 2nd in 2023. Since September,
we have been working on this; a real challenge because we had to be able to bring together all the biologists; pharmacists, doctors,
but you also know that there are appendices, that there are our colleagues who are engineers, who have PHDs, so we wanted to bring everyone together for these days so that everyone could share their experience, the results of their work. We also made a point of echoing these days in Africa, so we had the honour of receiving colleagues from Senegal, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire and France, who took part in these days. We were chosen to chair the Scientific Committee and we were very surprised because we received a lot of oral and poster communications.
So the programme was rich and intense. In addition, we had the honour of receiving our masters who trained us in clinical biology, such as Professor Ebène Moussi, who gave the first inaugural lecture. We had as moderators of the sessions, Prof. Ngogang Jeanne, Prof. Batcham Wilfried, Prof. Touré Miro Judith, Prof. Same Ekobo Albert, Prof. Mbagna Dora, who were those who shaped us in clinical biology. We also had a plenary session with Prof Francois Xavier Bopikewou. We had three symposia: on the first day, the biomerieux symposium, particularly the microbiology
symposium, on the second day, we had a symposium on molecular biology with the company Tridem Pharma and on the third day, we intervened with the company Bio et Com in biochemistry; we received the members of the American Association Chemistry who gave us a workshop on quality management, which was held not only on the first day, but also on the second day.
Knowing also that we want this collaboration with clinicians, other learned societies, we received communications from clinical doctors,
whether gastroenterologists, cardiologists or endocrinologists. This is why we have inserted a clinical session in order to perfect the friendship that exists between biologists and clinicians and for this session we have Prof. François Kaze, who is a nephrologist, full professor of nephrology who moderated the session. Did you personally make a presentation at the conference? Yes, we made a presentation, particularly
at the symposium organised by the Bio et Com company. Our presentation was based on an ion called magnesium because we have the possibility in the biochemistry laboratory of measuring total magnesium and we do not measure ionised magnesium, although
this is the one that should be preferred in our analyses. We have tried to show the difference between total and ionised magnesium.
The company Bio et Com, with its partners, has proposed equipment that would allow us to make ionised magnesium, which could help clinicians in their decision- making, since magnesium is an ion involved in the production of energy, muscle contractility, and we need it for our nervous system. So it’s an essential ion and that’s why we chose to talk about it. As head of the biochemistry laboratory at the Yaounde University Hospital,
what are your daily challenges? Yes, we have been the head of the biochemistry laboratory at the University
Hospital of Yaounde since 2016 and depending on how far we have come so far, there are challenges. First of all, on the pedagogical
level, since we are at the University Hospital, we have a duty to train future biologists but also trainees who come from training schools, medical analysis technicians, biochemistry masters, biochemistry doctoral students, even students who are doing more and more studies in the biochemistry laboratory; this allows them to know our science and as for us, it allows us to be constantly updated because we have to read documents,
we have to publish articles. So it’s a real challenge because they are the ones who will take over tomorrow.
Another challenge in terms of research is that the CHUY is also a research hospital, so we supervise
a lot of research work here in the biochemistry laboratory that has been published in national, regional, African or international journals, and the results are also presented at conferences such as the Cameroon Clinical Biology Days. We also participate in African or even international meetings, for example the World Laboratory Congress which will be held from 21 to 25 May in Rome, Italy. So it is an honour for us to go and represent
both our hospital and the faculty, the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at these meetings and to be able to show what we do in Cameroon.
We also have this aspect of cooperation, because the students come from different backgrounds. So we have to be able to manage our relations
with all the training schools in order to perfect the training of the learners who are entrusted to us. Finally, we are concerned about the health of Cameroonians, which is not the least of our concerns. We receive patients on a daily basis who must be satisfied and the satisfaction of these patients is important to us. Our great wish is that the Biochemistry Laboratory be recognised not only in the country but also in the Central African sub-region and that we can receive international partners. So these are some of our daily challenges and we try to bring our little stone to the development of clinical biology in Cameroon, to health in general in Cameroon and why not internationally.