Gov’t Expands COVID-19 Test Centres – Deputy Health Minister

The Government has expanded the number of Covid-19 testing facilities with two more laboratories within few weeks, Deputy Minister of Health, that’s according to the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye.

The additions are the Korle-Bu Public Health Reference Laboratory and the University of Health and Allied Sciences Laboratory in the Volta Region.

This according to him forms part of measures to make more testing centres available in the country to ease the burden on Noguchi Memorial Institute of Medical Research and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR) which have since the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana been the main laboratories testing samples for across the country for the virus.

Dr. Okoe Boye, while addressing parliament said “I am happy to say that apart from Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Accra and KCCR in Kumasi, the Akufo-Addo government has worked hard to ensure that within these few weeks, Korle-Bu public health reference laboratory and the UHAS laboratory in the Volta Region have been added to the centres for doing COVID-19 tests. Very soon, Navrongo Reference Laboratory and other facilities will be equipped to add on to our diagnostic capacities for CSM, COVID-19 and other disease conditions regarding modern sophisticated laboratories with the capacity to do Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.”

According to him, the Navrongo Reference Laboratory and other facilities will be equipped to add on to the diagnostic capacities not only for Covid-19, but also for CSM and other disease conditions regarding modern sophisticated laboratories with the capacity to do Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.

The deputy Minister explained that the government was facilitating speedy testing of Covid-19 samples that were yet to be done following the stepping up of the contact tracing efforts to identify possible cases of the virus in the country.

Until the new additions, the Noguchi Medical Research Institute in Accra and the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research were the only testing centres in the country.