First WADA-approved drug-testing lab in Kenya

Urine samples from Chinese athletes are recorded upon arriving at China Anti-Doping Agency in Beijing which World Anti-Doping Agency suspended in April 2016. [File]

Athletics Kenya and the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (Adak) have welcomed the approval of a drug-testing laboratory in the country.

Kenya is reeling from negative publicity as some of her top athletes have tested positive on prohibited substances top among them beleaguered multiple world champions Asbel Kiprop.

800m rising star Kipyegon Bett is the latest of an array of Kenya’s track exponents to test positive for banned substances.

Yesterday, Athletics Integrity Unit, which handles doping cases in international track and field announced the Wada-approved lab in Nairobi will be operational early next month.

LANCET Group of Laboratories, a leading pathology laboratory service, has been given the onus.

It’ll be able to perform blood analyses as well as other tests, desperately needed in a country under scrutiny for severe shortcomings in doping control.

Athletics Kenya President Lt-Gen (Rtd) Jackson Tuwei described the new development as “the best news for the country”.

“This time round things will be faster, easier and cheaper and those who want to engage in doping will suffer the consequences,” AK, which has in the past been accused of dragging its feet over the menace, said on its twitter page.

The laboratory will come as a major relief for Adak, which is still at its infancy, in its bid to stem the scourge in Kenya’s track and field.

“Since our establishment in April 2016 we have continued to deal with the challenge of incurring enormous logistical and financial costs resulting from the technical process of transporting blood samples to a WADA accredited laboratory in Qatar for analysis,” Adak CEO Japhter Rugut said in a statement yesterday.

“With the approval of the LANCET Group of Laboratories by WADA the logistical nightmare that we have contended with in relation to blood samples has now been effectively addressed.

He added: “In addition, it has also eliminated the tangible risk of blood samples delaying to get to the laboratory for analysis. This means that the capacity and integrity of our blood testing process will be greatly enhanced.

Previously, blood samples taken from Kenya’s world-beating distance runners had to be flown to South Africa or Europe to be tested at an approved lab within 36 hours, a challenging race-against-time that led to the regular bending of anti-doping rules as revealed by The Associated Press in 2016.

Blood doping is especially relevant to distance running, where Kenya has been a powerhouse for decades. The nation’s reputation has been hit hard, though, by an upsurge in doping cases in recent years and an ineffective and sometimes corrupt anti-doping system.

The AIU said it collected more than 3,500 blood samples to test for doping in 2017. It expects the lab in Nairobi to handle between 800 and 1,000 samples a year from the East African region, including from Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Eritrea.

The Nairobi lab belongs to the Lancet healthcare group and has been fitted to handle anti-doping tests. The project took nine months and was paid for by the AIU with help from track and field’s governing body, the IAAF.

It’s not a fully accredited Wada lab, but the world anti-doping organisation allows an approved facility to handle some tests for cost and geographic reasons as long as it meets criteria.