Research plan
Mapping blood-test sites and labs in Dar es Salaam
The aim is simple: find every place in Dar es Salaam where blood is drawn and every laboratory that tests it, put each one on a map, estimate how many tests it runs, and record what it charges.
Dodoma is Tanzania’s official capital. Dar es Salaam is the commercial centre and the city with the largest concentration of hospitals, private clinics and laboratories, so the work starts there. The method has four parts: build a master list of sites, estimate volume, collect prices, and publish the result as a map and a spreadsheet.
●Results so far (30 Sep 2026)
The Google Places mapping of the city is done for a first pass. It found 2,295 sites that are likely to draw blood. Each site is on the map below and in the spreadsheet.
Open the map full screen · Download spreadsheet (.xlsx) · Download all sites (.csv)
| Site type (Google Places) | Sites |
|---|---|
| Laboratories | 177 |
| Hospitals | 200 |
| Clinics, health centres and dispensaries | 1,912 |
| Pharmacies with a lab | 6 |
| Total | 2,295 |
| District | Sites |
|---|---|
| Ilala | 670 |
| Kinondoni | 664 |
| Ubungo | 459 |
| Temeke | 377 |
| Kigamboni | 125 |
What the numbers do and do not show
- Google misses many labs. The Health Facility Registry lists 342 private laboratories in Dar es Salaam. Only about 124 of them roughly match a Google name. The registry has to be merged in before the lab count means much.
- 957 clinic rows are low confidence. They are included only because of their Google place type, not their name, and some may not draw blood.
- No cash prices yet. No lab we found publishes its cash prices online. The only prices found are the NHIF 2024 reimbursement tariffs, for example 8,000 TZS for a full blood picture and 13,300 TZS for HbA1c. These still need verification, and they are what the insurer pays, not what a patient pays in cash.
- Size tiers are a proxy, not measured volume. The A/B/C tiers in the spreadsheet come from review counts, 24-hour opening and chain membership. They do not give tests per day.
1Build the master list
No single source lists every site. We combine several, then remove duplicates.
Official registers
- Private Health Laboratories Board (PHLB). Its register of licensed private laboratories gives names, licence grades and locations.
- Ministry of Health Health Facility Registry. Lists public and private facilities with GPS coordinates, facility type and ownership.
Google Places grid search
We hold a Google Maps API key. The city is divided into a grid of small cells, and each cell is searched for a fixed set of terms so that results are not capped by the API’s per-query limit:
- laboratory, diagnostic centre, blood test
- hospital, clinic, dispensary
- the Swahili maabara (laboratory)
OpenStreetMap
Health-related tags (hospitals, clinics, doctors, laboratories) within the city boundary. OSM coverage is uneven, but it sometimes holds sites that Google does not.
Chain branch lists
Branch and collection-centre lists from the larger networks: Lancet, Aga Khan, Regency, Hindu Mandal and the big private hospitals. Collection centres matter because many draw blood on site and send samples to a central lab.
Deduplicate and classify
- Merge records on Google place ID first, then on a name match combined with distance between coordinates.
- Tag each site by function: draw point only, lab that runs tests, or both.
- Tag each site by ownership: public, private or faith-based.
2Estimate test volume
Few labs publish their volumes, so we estimate from three directions and check them against each other.
Top-down
City population multiplied by tests per person per year, split between public and private providers, using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and Ministry of Health data.
Bottom-up
For each site, record observable proxies for size:
- staff numbers
- analyser make and model
- opening hours
- Google review counts
- accreditation, such as ISO 15189 or SANAS
These proxies are then calibrated against 10 to 20 labs for which we obtain real figures by phone or in person. The calibrated model is applied to the rest.
Supply-side check
Reagent and analyser distributors (the local agents for Roche, Abbott and Sysmex) can indicate how much testing capacity is installed in the city. This is a cross-check on the other two estimates, not a replacement.
3Collect prices
- Published sources. Price lists on websites and WhatsApp business catalogues.
- Mystery shopping by phone. Ask every lab for the same standard basket (below) so prices can be compared directly.
- Insurer benchmark. The National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) tariff schedule gives the reimbursement rate for each test.
| Standard basket | Why it is included |
|---|---|
| Full blood count | The most common routine test |
| Malaria test | High everyday demand in Dar es Salaam |
| HbA1c | Diabetes monitoring |
| Lipid panel | Cardiovascular risk |
| Liver function panel | Routine chemistry |
| Kidney function panel | Routine chemistry |
| HIV test | Widely offered at public and private sites |
4Output
- A map of every site, filterable by function and ownership.
- A spreadsheet with one row per site: name, coordinates, type (draw point, lab or both), ownership, estimated tests per day, and the price of each basket item.
5Status
Done (first pass): Google Places mapping of Dar es Salaam, with 2,295 likely blood-draw sites, each assigned a district and a size tier.
Next: merge the Health Facility Registry and PHLB lab lists to fill the labs Google misses, and check the 957 low-confidence clinic rows.
Still needed: someone on the ground for the phone calls and site visits that measure test volumes and collect real cash prices for the basket. NHIF tariffs need to be verified.
Volume estimates and cash prices are not on this page yet because they have not been collected.