WHO COLLABORATING CENTRE FOR ARBOVIRUS
REFERENCE & RESEARCH

The WHO Collaborating Centre (WHO CC) for Arbovirus Reference & Research (Dengue/Severe Dengue) MAA-12 was first designated in 1982. It is the oldest and the 2nd oldest WHO CC in Malaysia and the Western Pacific Region, respectively. The Tropical Infectious Diseases Research & Education Centre (TIDREC) also houses the WHO Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus Reference & Research and continues to perform routine isolation, detection and serotyping of dengue virus (DENV) from febrile samples collected at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) during the last period of designation (2014-2019) 

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Term of Reference (TOR)

1. Assist WHO in providing advanced diagnostics, reference services and proficiency testing services to Member States as and when appropriate,  and at its request,  supporting outbreak investigation, preparedness planning, and response in the area of mosquito- and tick-borne infections.

2. ​Support WHO laboratory capacity building priorities by providing training and promoting best practices among Member States in the region.

3. Support WHO in planning and conducting operational research on mosquito- and tick-borne diseases, including development and evaluation of diagnostic tools and practices.

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The centre also developed several detection tools for the detection of several arboviruses using various nucleic acid detection techniques including the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), quantitative RT-PCR, RT-Recombinase Polymerase Assay (RPA) and RT-Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP). Some of these techniques are ISO-accredited for the laboratory testing.

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Figure 1: Gold medal awards for the development of dengue diagnostic tools.