The Laboratorio Nacional de Prevencion y Control del Dopaje, or CONADE, in Mexico City has ceased operations. That means that the lab will no longer conduct WADA-accredited anti-doping analysis.
WADA made the announcement this week, almost 4 months after the lab shut down on November 15th, 2019, as the organizations lobbied Mexico to continue supporting the laboratory. While WADA did not previously announce the closing, they do feel “satisfied” that the lab notified its clients of its decision and followed through with its duties to assist in the transfer of samples to another WADA-accredited laboratory.
The CONADE lab was the only WADA-accredited anti-doping lab in the Central America, and one of only 6 labs in the Western Hemisphere. The remaining labs include Havana, Los Angeles, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, and Salt Lake City.
By comparison, there are 17 accredited laboratories in Europe alone. Asia has 6, Africa has 1, and Oceania has 1.
Isn’t Mexico in North America? Don’t want to be pedantic about it, but it’s a rather large country to just “move” somewhere else.
Anyway, fewer labs is always bad 🙁