The government of Ghana has begun processes to expand the number of Covid-19 testing centres in the country, President Akufo-Addo has said.
The move, according to the President, will facilitate speedy testing of Covid-19 contacts that would be traced in all 16 regions in the country.
The Noguchi Memorial Institute, Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research and the National Public Health Reference Laboratory are the only testing centres currently.
List of new Covid-19 testing centers
Addressing the nation on Sunday night, the President named a number of laboratories earmarked for the exercise.
They include; the Veterinary Laboratory in Accra, the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research Laboratory, Accra, the Police Hospital, the 37 Military Hospitals, and the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ho.
The others are; the Veterinary Services Department in Sekondi-Takoradi, the Public Health Laboratory in Tamale, the War Memorial Hospital in Navrongo and the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.
All the testing centers when established, can also use the PCR technology in their work under the supervision of the Noguchi Memorial Institute and Medical Research.
“We are recalibrating one hundred (100) Regional and District Tuberculosis Gene Expert Laboratories across the country, to help ensure that we have a minimum situation of one testing centre per region”, the President further stated.
Ghana’s Covid-19 case count
The country’s Covid-19 case count currently stands at 1,042 with nine deaths.
“Since the first two cases of infections were recorded on our shores, we have, till date, traced some eighty-six thousand (86,000) contacts, out of which we have test results of sixty-eight thousand, five hundred and ninety-one (68,591) contacts. There is, thus, a backlog of some eighteen thousand (18,000) tests whose results are yet to be received”, President Akufo-Addo noted.
By Jonathan Ofori, Daily Mail GH
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