National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS)

The NHLS is a national public entity established in terms of the National Health Laboratory Service Act, No. 37 of 2000, governed by a Board to provide quality, affordable, and sustainable health laboratory services, training, and research. It was established in 2001 by amalgamating the former South African Institute for Medical Research (SAIMR), the National Institute for Virology and the National Centre for Occupational Health. It is managed according to the provisions of the National Health Laboratory Service Act, the NHLS Rules, and the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), No. 1 of 1999 (as amended).
Through its countrywide network of quality-assured diagnostic laboratories, the NHLS is the sole provider of diagnostic pathology services to more than 80% of the South African population. It also provides surveillance support for communicable diseases, occupational health, and cancer.
It has a clear organisational structure consisting of a head office in Sandringham, Johannesburg, six regions (Eastern Cape; Free State and North West; Gauteng; KwaZulu-Natal; Limpopo and Mpumalanga; and Northern and Western Cape), institutes, namely: the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), incorporating the National Cancer Registry (NCR); the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH); and departments, Forensic Chemistry Laboratories (FCLs); Diagnostic Media Products (DMP); and subsidiary the South African Vaccine Producers (SAVP). SAVP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NHLS, and the only South African manufacturer of antivenom for the treatment of snake, scorpion and spider envenomation.
The six regions are purposefully designed to ensure that the NHLS plans, agrees on budgets, and monitors laboratory services jointly with provincial health partners, with the intention of laboratory services being part of the public health delivery system. The NHLS delivers services for the entire public sector, from academic, provincial, tertiary, regional, and district hospitals to primary healthcare facilities. The level of complexity and sophistication of services increases from peripheral laboratories to central urban laboratories (with specialised surveillance infrastructure existing at specific sites).
The NHLS also has three in-house Diagnostic Media Products (DMP) units that manufacture microbiological culture media and reagents for use in clinical diagnostic laboratories. The diagnostic media products are supplied internally to NHLS laboratories as well as externally to private laboratories and some laboratories within the African continent. The NHLS intends to enhance and integrate these units under single management and strengthen it to become a revenue-generating unit.