With an common of 2,000 samples to check in a day, Ghana’s 2nd prominent coronavirus tests facility has ramped up team figures to crystal clear mounting backlogs.
Virologist at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Investigation (KCCR), Dr Augustina Sylverken, claimed in the beginning, test samples trickled in tens and hundreds when it commenced tests for Covid-19, having said that, the numbers keep increasing.
“When this pandemic commenced, we had been just receiving samples in tens, in hundreds it moved into the two hundreds…to one thousand. So we also required to re-strategise: provide in far more palms.
“So now we do day and night time. Every time you get into our labs, you will unquestionably see individuals testing…” she mentioned on Joy News’ present-day affairs programme Upfront on Thursday.
When she was requested how lots of of the samples deposited by the Ghana Wellbeing Service the facility will have to crystal clear to ease the force, Dr Sylverken instructed host of the programme, Winston Amoah, that “maybe a tiny in excess of 8,000.”
She was assured, nonetheless, that the backlogs would be cleared by Sunday, May well 3, 2020.
“In phrases of how several we are capable to exam, we are capable to do amongst 1,000 and 2,500 on every day basis,” she stated.
Most up-to-date figures introduced by the Ghana Health Company on Thursday reveal some 113,497 samples have been tested for Covid-19 out of which 2,074 have tested optimistic for the virus.
Some 1,839 Covid-19 patients are responding very well to remedy with 212 recoveries. Only 6 clients remain in crucial issue with 17 fatalities.
With authorities emphasising the need for elevated testing as a way of greedy the mother nature of neighborhood spread, Dr Sylverken unveiled that as more and extra tests labs open across the region, Ghana is poised to get a grip on the pandemic.
She discovered, for instance, that apart from increasing its workers figures, KCCR was also increasing its tentacles by placing up a testing lab at the Komfo Anokye Training Clinic, also in Kumasi.
According to her, KCCR and many Covid-19 screening labs in the region are just one degree underneath the optimum Biosafety Degree Four Laboratory, indicating that this offers some obstacle with regards to the velocity of the screening.
She reported KCCR and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Health care Study in Accra are Biosafety Level A few laboratories, demanding that the samples they work on will have to be made inactive prior to testing starts – a technique that drags the overall tests course of action.
