Kenneth Antwi hands over the test kits to Prof. Ebenezer Oduro Owusu as Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare looks on
Olam International, in conjunction with the Singapore-based Temasek Foundation, has donated 100 Fortitude Testing Kits to the government to support the fight against the spread of Covid-19.
The two organizations presented a total of 100 kits, comprising the Fortune Kit 2.0 and the MGIEasy Magnetic Beads Virus DNA/RNA Extraction Kit, each of which contains sufficient reagents for 200 tests, equivalent to a total of 20,000 test units.
The consignment was handed over to the government through the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Accra and Kenneth Antwi, National Head of HR at Olam Ghana, presented the items on behalf of the Board and Management of Olam.
“We have previously focused our efforts on helping to improve the safety and welfare of frontline health workers, but with this consignment of testing kits, equivalent to 20,000 test units, it is our fervent hope that the capacity of the laboratories in the area of testing will be greatly strengthened and help the country win the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic,” Mr. Antwi said.
Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, Presidential Advisor on Health, commended Olam and its partners for the donation and urged other organizations in the corporate community to emulate the example.
Temasek Foundation, a shareholder of Olam International, has rolled out various programmes to strengthen social resilience, foster international exchange and regional capabilities, and advance science and nature.
The Fortitude Kit 2.0 is designed by Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus and is an ‘All-in-One’ kit for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA while the MGIEasy Magnetic Beads Virus DNA/RNA Extraction Kit can efficiently purify the viral DNA and RNA from throat swabs, saliva, serum, plasma, BALF (bronchoalveolar lavage fluid), virus culture medium and is suitable for use in downstream molecular detection. This kit is suitable for manual and automated extraction on MGISP-960 and MGISP-100.
The kits come complete with all the materials required for the RT-PCR reaction, which include the primer probes mix, the enzyme mix, the positive control, negative control and internal control template.