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In Mongolia, the leading cause of death is liver cancer. It has one of the highest rates in the world, and 98% of this burden is attributed to viral hepatitis infection.

In April 2017 Mongolia established The Healthy Liver Programme 2017-2020 to eliminate hepatitis C (HCV) infection and reduce mortality due to cirrhosis and liver cancer through early detection and treatment of hepatitis B (HBV) and HCV infection.

To achieve this goal, the Mongolia Ministry of Health requested support from the World Health Organisation (WHO). This support included co-facilitating and presenting the WHO’s first National Workshop for Strengthening and Linking Viral Hepatitis Laboratory, Surveillance and Patient Monitoring Systems in April 2017.

The workshop was organised by a range of people from the WHO, the WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis at the Doherty Institute, the National Reference Laboratory (NRL), US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Korean CDC, and the Mongolian Ministry of Health and National Centre for Communicable Diseases (NCCD). The aim was to assist key Mongolian stakeholders to examine the capacity in strategic information and laboratory diagnosis of viral hepatitis in order to formulate recommendations for improvement, and to identify ways forward to implement these recommendations.

The workshop was well received and attended by almost 90 people including public and private laboratory staff and managers, clinicians, and epidemiologists from across Mongolia. Attendees provided a thorough analysis of the current status of strategic information and in vitro diagnosis systems for viral hepatitis in Mongolia. After identification of gaps between the WHO-recommended benchmarks and the current situation, participants then proposed recommendations. Attendees and facilitators alike were pleased with the range of perspectives and recommendations that were garnered through the workshop, and were optimistic about their effective implementation.