Research centres in Ghana prepare to join global efforts for COVID-19 solutions
As the global search for answers to the COVID-19 pandemic intensifies, research centres under the Ghana Health Service (GHS) are in the process of responding to some international calls for scientific research and projects.
Dr. Kwaku Poku Asante, Director of the Kintampo Health Research Centre explained that they are meeting to respond to some of these calls that have been put out as a result of the outbreak to enable studies and projects into various aspects of the disease to take place.
He was speaking to ghanabusinessnews.com on some areas and activities that the research centres are exploring to help in the fight against the coronavirus disease in Ghana.
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Ghana have successfully sequenced genomes of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, obtaining important information about the genetic composition of viral strains in 15 of the confirmed cases in Ghana. This major contribution from the University will help in understanding the virus, leading to developing vaccines and drugs for its treatment. The University intends to do more to investigate immunity to the disease.
All over the globe, research activities on the virus are taking place with others still in the pipeline as funding issues also take center-stage. Some research taking place include studies into vaccines, drugs and new knowledge and data to understand the disease and to design tools to effectively end the pandemic and its future occurrence.
Recently, world experts and funders set priorities for the COVID-19 research at a World Health Organisation (WHO) led meeting. Leading health experts from around the world met at the WHO’s Geneva headquarters to assess the current level of knowledge about the new COVID-19 disease, identify gaps and work together to accelerate and fund priority research needed to help stop the outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks.
The two-day forum was convened in line with the WHO’s strategy for developing drugs and vaccines before epidemics, and accelerating research and development while they are occurring.
According to the WHO, the coronavirus outbreak is a test of solidarity, in terms of politics, finances, and science and called for joint global effort to fight a common enemy that does not respect borders to ensure that there are resources to bring the outbreak to an end by finding shared answers to shared problems.
During the meeting, the more than 300 scientists and researchers participating both in person and virtually agreed on a set of global research priorities. They also outlined mechanisms for continuing scientific interactions and collaborations beyond the meeting which will be coordinated and facilitated by WHO. They worked with research funders to determine how necessary resources can be mobilized so that critical research can start immediately.
Due to the pandemic, there have been a lot of strain on health systems, affecting both developed and developing countries with calls for developing stronger public health systems to contain the current pandemic and also to make room for other diseases and future pandemics, locally and globally.
According to the WHO, the coronavirus outbreak is a test of solidarity, in terms of politics, finances, and science.
Dr. Asante said in Ghana, they are working towards conducting a study to assess the impact of the pandemic on the health sector’s response to other conditions and diseases.
He said this study is going to be directed at assessing how the pandemic is affecting the delivery of service involving other diseases, the mortality and morbidity rates and it would also evaluate the coronavirus’s impact on child and maternal health care.
A lot of attention is being focused on the pandemic and there is the need to assess how this is impacting on other services and illnesses and Dr Asante said a proposal has been sent to the GHS for the necessary support to carry out this study on impact.
Over the years, the Kintampo, Navrongo and the Dodowa Health Research Centres have served as big platforms for various international research and clinical trials in and outside Africa. They have worked in areas such as vitamin A studies, tuberculosis, maternal health, mental health, cerebro-spinal meningitis epidemiology studies with malaria studies being one of the major areas of their research activities.
One of these centres, together with others across Africa, contributed to a Malaria Clinical Trials Alliance (MCTA) project, which worked on the RTS,S vaccine, the world’s first malaria vaccine, which has now reached a new phase in its journey.
The three sites were also part of a multi-study team, across four African countries, which took part in the first-ever phase 4 malaria clinical trials. It was the largest phase 4 studies on the African continent to evaluate anti-malarials in relation to their efficacy and effectiveness in treating patients in typical health systems in Africa and it aimed at enhancing the capacity of African scientists to carry out phase 4 studies locally to provide independent and objective data to national, regional and international decision-makers for the formulation of evidence-based policy on antimalarials and beyond.
Dr. Poku Asante noted that the best way to deal with disease outbreaks in Ghana such as the COVID 19, Ebola, cerebro-spinal meningitis or any other pandemic, is to strengthen surveillance across the country to help in the early identification of any outbreak and pattern of spread.
He also said another action is to establish public health reference libraries spread across the country so that data and samples on diseases or outbreaks can be collected and analysed in real time for the necessary action.
According to the WHO, surveillance helps in the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice.
Experts also say surveillance can serve as an early warning system for impending public health emergencies, in documenting the impact of an intervention, or tracking progress towards specified goals, monitoring and clarifying the epidemiology of health problems, to allow priorities to be set and to inform public health policy and strategies.
By Eunice Menka
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