The United States Ambassador to Ghana Ambassador Stephanie S. Sullivan has commissioned the Tamale Public Health Laboratory in Tamale in the Northern region.
At the commissioning ceremony, the U.S Ambassador noted that the United States-Ghana bilateral partnership has grown stronger through the provision of technical expertise and critical infrastructure that has allowed Ghana to rapidly respond to Covid-19, control the pandemic and save lives.
She disclosed that the Tamale Public Health Laboratory and the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre are the fruit of the United States and Ghana Health Service collaboration activities and partners like the Korean International Corporation Agency.
“ The U.S government through Centre for Disease Control is pleased to partner with the government of Ghana to strengthen and expand laboratory diagnostic capacities to cover diseases and to make molecular testing easily accessible.”
The U.S Ambassador stressed that the state of the art functional molecular laboratories designed and operated with safety and efficiency in mind supports timely diagnosis services for public health promotion and protection and quality patient care and also providing a safe working environment for laboratories staffs.
“ This will allow the Tamale Public Health Laboratory to expand Covid-19 testing program in the Northern region and with this addition, I strongly believe that the region is ready to diagnose other diseases when called upon now or in the future.”
Ambassador Sullivan said the completion of the Tamale Public Health Laboratory is timely to support the current International Organization for Standardization accreditation and certification for Ghana’s four public health laboratories.
“ The United States is firmly committed to strengthening multilateral operation and global health and global health security. The pandemic has shown us the need for global effort to come down to global challenges so we will continue to explore opportunities with Ghana under the global health security agenda to fight the current COVID-19 pandemic and be prepared for any emerging public health threats.”
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said the establishment of the Tamale Public Health Laboratory will enable personnel’s the capacity to undertake molecular testing within a safe and more structured laboratory that could improve the quality of testing and reduce contamination.
According to him, the facility will not only serve the five regions of the North but also parts of the Oti region.
He admonished the leadership of the Northern Regional Health Directorate to put the facility into good use and ensure frequent maintenance.
“ our development partners U.S government, WHO among others we are grateful for this gesture as the commitment in this sector for the past few years. We hope that the long-standing relationship between us will be further strengthened to deepen our health system to detect and respond to outbreaks and pandemics.”
FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale