The 2021 edition of the CelebrateLab West Africa Conference on combating infectious diseases in the sub-region kicked off in Accra on Wednesday, April 21, 2021.
The conference is aimed at harnessing opportunities for future medical laboratory practices in the fight against pandemics.
It was attended by health practitioners, medical laboratory scientists and professionals and other health actors discussed ways of enhancing services delivered by laboratories and improving diagnostics.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said the COVID-19 pandemic has compelled Ghana to improve its laboratory systems and capacity.
He said these laboratories are now equipped to provide support in terms of diagnostics for current and future outbreak infections.
The Minister for Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, who opened the conference said the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed the vulnerabilities in the health system in the sub-region.
“The pandemic has exposed our laboratory systems for improvement. The experiences of the early stages of the pandemic in Africa is a wake-up call to all of us,” he said.
He was however quick to add that the government is committed to ensuring the provision of adequate resources to tackle current and future pandemics.
The conference was under the theme “Combating Emerging and Re-emerging Infections through Standardization of Laboratory Practice across West Africa”
