By Jerry Omondi
The Ghana Infectious Disease Center (GIDC) has installed its first Arterial Blood Gas Analyzer donated by the World Health Organization (WHO) with the support of the World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Facility Fund.
The analyzer boosts the West African nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic by providing optimum intensive care to critically ill patients.
“The equipment will serve as a holistic point of care which will provide a shorter processing time with results in less than 5 minutes instead of the sometimes long waiting time at the laboratory,” said Dr Christian Owoo, Coordinator for Severe and Critical COVID-19 cases.
The 100-bed capacity GIDC is the country’s first infectious disease center built with the support of the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund in response to the pandemic.
The facility is Ghana’s major referral point for COVID-19 patients in need of intensive critical care.
Ghana has rolled out a rigorous response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including various government-imposed measures including a mandatory wearing of face coverings.
The country is also currently undertaking a nationwide vaccination campaign in efforts to contain the spread of the virus.
By Tuesday, health authorities had recorded 118,266 COVID-19 infections with 1,017 fatalities.