Laboratory Animal Science in the Southern African Development Community Countries (SADC)

The South African Association for Laboratory Animal Science (SAALAS) intends to establish a Community of Practice (CoP) for the Southern African Development Community Countries (SADC) to support Laboratory Animal Sciences in this region. We are of the opinion that a CoP will allow us establish guidelines for the use of animals for scientific, medical and educational purposes, which in turn will help to harmonise the minimum requirements for these activities across the SADC region.
We are aware of many such projects/ activities currently being investigated or implemented by other forums. This proposed CoP will work in collaboration with those forums to prevent any duplication in efforts – for example:
a) the IUPHAR/Pharmacology for Africa IOSP initiative https://iuphar.org/2022/03/09/iosp-initiative-update/ and
b) the Pan African Network for Laboratory Animal Sciences and Ethics (see https://event.eventee.co/event/12192/detail/session-detail/71841 (from 5:54:20 – 6:14:50  ) .
We also intend to consult with national Regulatory and Statutory Bodies as appropriate

With this communique we invite you to join this CoP (by completing the short form below) so that we can, together, determine what the need (s) of each respective country is, how to effectively support the development of standardised documents, functions and how to facilitate benchmarking exercises based on international accepted standards.

Please feel free to contact:
Dr Kimberly Jardine (President of SAALAS – kimberly.jardine@wits.ac.za) ,
Dr Dave Lewis – d.i.lewis@leeds.ac.uk,
Prof Kennedy Erlwanger – Kennedy.Erlwanger@wits.ac.za,
Dr Tashie Makwavarara – tashie.makwavarara@uct.ac.za and
Mr. Winston Beukes – wabeukes@sun.ac.za to find out more about this exciting project.