Scientists at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) has urged government to take a cue from the global pandemic to adequately resource research institutions and build their capacities to adequately respond to similar situations in future.
The Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine is one of the main centres involved in the testing of samples for Ghana’s COVID-19 cases.
With the increasing number of coronavirus infections in Ghana, the Centre has scaled up its operations and has so far tested over eight thousand samples.
Dr. Michael Owusu, a virologist at the KCCR in a Citi News interview called on the government to invest in research enable them to understand the dynamics of other diseases.
“Research goes with funding but in Ghana and some of the countries in the sub-Saharan region, we mostly depend on research funded by external bodies and due to that, most of the research is not driven by ideas which are needed to enhance local capacity and to solve local problems. If we had enough capacity in place, then we could have done more than we are doing and the COVID coming is a call for all of us to instead of sitting down to be overwhelmed by this pandemic, we should be investing into research that will enable us to understand the dynamics of diseases,” he urged.
Ghana is currently leading the continent with the highest number of tests in excess of 80,000, thanks to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR), Public Health Reference Laboratory (PHRL).
Ghana’s case count of COVID-19
Ghana currently has 1,154 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 120 recoveries and nine deaths.
