The United States Ambassador to Ghana, Stephanie S. Sullivan, has commissioned the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre in Tamale in the Northern Region.
Addressing participants at the ceremony, the US Ambassador said the commissioning of the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre is an example of the United States Centre for Disease Control(CDC) and supports Ghana’s disease surveillance and response infrastructure.
The US Ambassador reiterated that Covid-19 is real and claimed many lives in Ghana and across the globe and urged everyone to respect the Covid-19 protocol and get the vaccine when available.
“The pandemic has exposed the need for localized public health capacity specifically in areas of workforce development, surveillance, laboratories and emergency management and response.”
She noted that a factional centre control and command centre at all levels of the health system is essential for effective coordination of Covid-19 response strategy.
Ambassador Sullivan stated that the regional emergency operation centres are part of a sustainable approach to building resilient public health infrastructure in Ghana which brings together stakeholders and experts to berate locally owned and sustainable solutions in a public health crisis.
“The US government looks forward in building partnership with the government of Ghana to further strengthen its health system to advance the global health security agenda and support the health of Ghanaians.”
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said Ghana has put in efforts to establish an emergency operation centre with support from implementing partners adding that the objective is to have emergency operation centres in all the regions.
According to him, the emergency operation centre in Tamale will serve as a central location for coordinating and operating information and resources for strategic management of public health, emergencies in the Northern region.
He indicated that the emergency operation centres will ensure that the region gets access to real-time data to early detect outranks of all public health events, coordinate and effectively respond to all public health emergencies.
“ The emergency operation centres will also provide ways of organizing processes through timely events specific operational decision making using best available information, policy, technical advice and plans at the national and the regional levels.”
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service noted that the facility will support other regions in the northern zone until similar facilities are established in these regions.
He encouraged the region to be nature effective use and maintenance of the facility for the benefit of the regions and other regions.
“ I acknowledge the support of the United States government, the U.S Centre for Disease Control, Ministry of Health, University of Ghana Public Health and other partners for the corporation to put together the facility .”
The Northern Regional Deputy Health Director, Mr Braimah Abubakari, said a team of eight staff from the disease control and surveillance of the regional health directorate will be operating the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre adding that the team has been trained to ensure that they bring out excellent results.
Mr Abubakari stressed that the establishment of the facility will greatly enhance the capacity of the regional health directorate and position the public health unit to respond to public health alerts and other related issues speedily while providing real-time data and feedback to relevant data for key stakeholders for decision making.
“ This will further augment the incident management system at the regional level through a collaborative approach in the framework of the international health regulations.”
He thanked the United States government and the U.S Centre for Disease Control for inventing resources for the project and pledged their commitment to take care of the facility.”
FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale