A Senior Research Fellow at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR), Dr. John Amuasi, has expressed concerns over the inability of local stakeholders to collect, interpret and release data pertaining to COVID-19 in Ghana.
His suggestion comes weeks after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo expressed concerns over some private laboratories’ refusal to share data of persons who test for COVID-19 on time.
Speaking on Citi TV/FM’s The Big Issue, Dr. Amuasi emphasized the need for the introduction of a systematic way of testing to ensure data on the rate of spread of the virus is captured.
“I am not suggesting that the health authorities are hiding any information. It is just our capability to collect, interpret and release information that is limited because we are only picking people who are sick and reporting to the hospital.
“If we want to win this we have to push our resources in a systematic approach that will ensure that we measure and identify cases in a precise and measured way.”
The government had earlier said it will not hesitate to withdraw the COVID-19 testing mandate of private laboratories that fail to provide real-time data on the people who patronize their service including those who test positive after the tests.
The President’s representative at the Information Ministry, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah had said the government will take action against laboratories failing to provide the needed information in real-time.
Among other measures, he said such errant facilities will be stopped from conducting COVID-19 tests.
“Part of the challenges we are having is that, there are a number of private labs which were licensed to conduct COVID-19 test because we wanted to expand our testing capacities and were expected to share in real-time all the data on persons who test and positives so that treatment and contract tracing can commence in real-time. Unfortunately, a good number of those labs have not lived up to that,” he said.
He added that the Ghana Health Service is deploying some of its staff to be stationed in some labs to ensure compliance.
“Now a new system is being put in place where the GHS is putting some staff members to some of these labs to help in the collation of these data and for those who persist in not uploading unto the platform that has been set up for this enterprise, sanctions will be applied. Those sanctions I’m informed include stopping them from conducting any further COVID-19 test.”
