Meanwhile, in Blantyre (Malawi), the laboratory is increasingly meeting the formation needs of the region: some Kenyan technicians have gone to the Blantyre laboratory for a placement, which allowed them to become perfectly able to conduct tests used in DREAM laboratories. This placement took place in view of the opening of a DREAM laboratory in Nairobi. Also in Blantyre, the formation of some Malawian technicians is under way: they will be responsible for the new laboratory of Balaka, which has been equipped to respond to the ever more numerous requests of the centre itself and of surrounding areas.

In the last week of April, with a good party organized by the Department of Microbiology of the University of Padova and the conferral of the official certificate of attendance, a laboratory technician from the Hospital of Guinea Bissau, microbiology section, completed a placement in practical and theoretical formation. Adao spent two months at the laboratory of Padova, learning Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture techniques, and the testing for resistances with antibiograms. These are important methodologies, because they enable one to deal with the problem of multi-resistant tuberculosis, which is ever more widespread in Africa, not least due to AIDS. The affection for Africa and the availability of the personnel of Padova were clearly in evidence and the head of the laboratory gave Adao an instrument for the reading of antibiograms.