The Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research is concerned about the state of its equipment being used in the testing and provision of Covid-19 test results.
A Senior Research Fellow at the Institute, Dr. Joseph Kofi Bonney in a Citi News interview said most of the equipment have broken down due to their excessive use.
He said the frequent breakdown of the equipment is affecting their work and could negatively impact the turnaround time in delivering COVID-19 test results.
He, therefore, called for support, particularly in the form of funds to service the equipment and maintain them regularly.
“…Because of the way we use them regularly and very frequently, they are breaking down. We need them to be serviced and we need funds to service and maintain them,” he said.
Dr. Joseph Kofi Bonney suggested that should the facility experience a surge in COVID-19 samples for testing, it may be able to deliver the results in one week instead of 24-hours.
“It will affect the nation if we start having a surge in the number of samples that we get. Assuming it keeps going up, that means our output will be slow and our turnaround time will increase from 24-hours to about a week, [and for] COVID we don’t need to get results after two or three days because it will become useless,” he added.
The Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research continues to be a leading COVID-19 centre in Ghana, boasting of state-of-the-art equipment for various diagnostics.
It was among the very few medical establishments that were first approved for COVID-19 testing in 2020.
