The Centre for Health System Strengthening with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as part of its capacity building programme has procured sequencers and its accompanying reagents for the National Public Health Reference Laboratory. A formal presentation of these items was done at the Ghana Health Service Headquarters in Accra on Thursday 2nd September, 2021.
Presentation of items was done by Dr Danielle Barradas, Global Health Security Program Director for CDC-Ghana. Director General for Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma- Aboagye received the items on behalf of the National Public Health reference laboratory and the Ghana Health Service as a whole.
The sequencers are to build the capacity of the National Public Health Reference laboratory in genomic analysis of pathogens that cause diseases of public health importance and particularly of SARS-CoV 2, which has currently the cause of the global pandemic, COVID-19. Currently, the only a few facilities have the ability and capacity to do sequencing in Ghana and it is important that a facility under the Ghana Health Service such as the National Public Health Reference Laboratory is given the capacity to also do so.
The Director General expressed his gratitude for the support that CfHSS with the help of the CDC continually gives to the services and highlighted some of the benefits and impact these make in the various facilities that the organization has worked in and donated items to.
