A World Health Organisation (WHO) scoping mission is in Ghana to engage the government and stakeholders in the health sector on strengthening the country's health security to effectively respond to emerging diseases.
The joint team from the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa (WHO-AFRO) and the Africa Center for Disease Control (AfCDC) seeks to identify areas where additional capacity and competencies could be built to close existing gaps in Ghana's health system.
The three-day engagement is expected to contribute to building resilience in the health sector to better protect the citizenry against the effects of public health emergencies.
The WHO Country Representative, Dr Francis Kasolo, speaking at the opening, said Ghana was selected for the scoping mission due to Ghana's outstanding response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the handling of other outbreaks that had occurred in the country.
He said the team had already identified areas where additional capacities and competencies could be developed to build strong resilience in the health system to withstand future emergencies.
Dr Kasolo mentioned such areas to include disease detection strategies, building a strong human resource workforce and improving logistics such that in case of any future pandemic, health service delivery will not be disrupted.
"This, when done effectively will enable Ghana to detect new diseases much faster, and build a strong human resource that could be deployed to deal with outbreaks within 24 hours.
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This will make the country develop further beyond its current situation and ensure that Ghana has the capacity to support other countries within the African continent in handling health emergencies," he stated.
Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, the Director General (DG) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said Ghana had made significant progress in responding to the various outbreaks over the years.
He said the mission had come at the right time when the country was faced with non-health hazards, such as road crashes and natural disasters like the ongoing Akosombo Dam spillage among others.
The DG thus urged the scoping mission to look at the country context in its proposals to enable effective implementation during response to emergencies.
For his part, Dr Anarfi Asamoah Baah, the Presidential Advisor on COVID-19, said the scoping presented Ghana an opportunity to "think outside the box" in planning and handling of public health emergencies.
"As we move into the future we must plan for the future and knowing that the future is unknown, we must think outside the box," he stated.
