The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced the immediate and full restoration of the South African Doping Control Laboratory’s (SADoCoL) accreditation as of 21 September 2018.
The laboratory was suspended on 2 May 2016 and its accreditation was revoked on 31 July 2017. During this time, SADoCoL has retained its accreditation to perform blood analysis for Athlete Biological Passport, but all urine analyses were performed by laboratories in Europe and elsewhere, which implied extra cost and inconvenience.
“The reinstatement of the accreditation is a culmination of careful planning and hard work. I wish to congratulate Dr Thinus van der Merwe and his team at SADoCoL on this achievement. SADoCoL can now once again take its rightful place among its peers in the international arena,” says Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS).
Since January 2015, SADoCoL has undergone major changes in consultation with other role players in doping control in South Africa and with the aid of international experts in the field, to once again be unique in the scope of its analytical doping control in Africa. During this period of development, new instrumentation and analytical techniques were acquired and validated, all of which now enables SADoCoL to fully serve the analytical requirements for doping control in sport in South Africa, the rest of Africa, and beyond.
Since its revocation, WADA has allowed the laboratory to prove its renewed analytical ability. Following the final accreditation test in March 2018, the WADA Laboratory Expert Group recommended that the Executive Committee of WADA reinstate SADoCoL’s accreditation, which led to yesterday’s announcement of the laboratory’s full reaccreditation.
“SADoCoL wishes to express its appreciation to the local anti-doping role players, the executive management of the UFS, and the laboratories of the World Association of Anti-Doping Scientists for their support during this period of growth,” says Dr van der Merwe.
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