Ghana has taken delivery of its share of medical supplies including Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) donated to African countries by businessman Jack Ma and his Alibaba Foundation to help fight the Coronavirus outbreak.
The Minister of Health, Kweku Agyeman Manu who received the items at the Kotoka International Airport on Wednesday said they will be distributed to the relevant health facilities.
“We have started receiving items that we ourselves have procured. There are some we have ordered that will be delivered by close of the week. We expect that apart from these items, we will take into inventory close to 30,000 Personal Protective Equipment, several quantities of masks and even sanitizers. We have registered close to 18 Ghanaian companies who are producing them locally. We are now properly prepared,” he said.
The Deputy Chief of Mission at the Chinese Embassy in Ghana, Zhu Jing said China will continue to provide support to Ghana to contain the spread of the Coronavirus disease.
He also revealed that Chinese companies in Ghana will soon extend a hand of support to Ghana to fight Coronavirus.
He said, “The Chinese government is very concerned about the situation in Ghana concerning the spread of the Coronavirus. Our government has already provided medical supplies to more than 100 countries especially Europe which has been hit very hard…We have sent some medical teams to Italy and other European countries. Right now we are focusing on Ghana and Africa.”
Meanwhile, Zahra Baitie, a Senior Project Manager at the Jack Ma Foundation says the foundation will continue to support government to fight the pandemic.
“We are playing our part to support the people of the world. We believe that COVID-19 can only be fought and contained if we all come together.”
The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Dr Abiy Ahmed who is one of the initiators of the gesture announced on Twitter that Ghana and other African countries were receiving their packages today, Wednesday.
The items distributed to the various African countries include more than 1.5 million laboratory diagnostic test kits and over 100 tons of infection prevention and control commodities.
