By Jones Anlimah
The Ghana Health Service (GHS), with support from the Korean government and other partners, has opened a regional Public Health Emergency Operations Centre at Ho in the volta region. This brings to four the number of Public Health Emergency Operations Centres in the country.
At a ceremony to commission the facility, the Korean ambassador to Ghana, Mr Lim Jung Taek said there are plans to set up 10 additional such facilities with a grant budget of $10 million under the second phase of the global health security agenda initiative.
The Public Health Emergency Operations Centre has been set up as part of efforts to strengthen the country’s emergency preparedness and response to public health threats. The Centre is expected to provide access to real-time data needed for early detection of disease outbreaks. The Centre can also be seamlessly linked with the National Emergency Operations Centre when the need arises. It is fitted with modern ICT equipment and will serve as a nerve centre for the coordination of public health emergencies in the Volta, Oti and Eastern regions.
The Volta Regional Minister, Dr. Archibald Letsa, said the geographical location of the region presents both threats and opportunities and that the region is aware of its responsibility as the first line of defence against public health threats along the Eastern corridor. He noted that government together with its partners, will continue to build formidable systems to further strengthen emergency preparedness and response capacity in the region.
“The multiple direct investments include the establishment of a regional infectious disease centre with a 40-bed capacity treatment facility and a separate 27-bed capacity intensive care centre all under the auspices of the Ho Teaching Hospital. The construction of 2 twenty bed capacity fully equipped infectious disease intensive care units at the Keta government hospital and the Ketu South Municipal Hospital, will be ready for commissioning in the next few weeks. The establishment of 2 fabricated, fully equipped pic health laboratories at Aflao border and Hohoe to enhance disease surveillance along our major borders,” he said.
The Korean Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Lim Jung Taek, said the setting up of the centre is a step closer to helping attain the goal of global health security agenda initiative and strengthening the country’s capacity to detect and respond to emerging public health threats. According to him the emergence of the Covid 19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of joining hands in a collective manner to ensure global health security.
“Under the second phase of global health security agenda with a grant budget of 10 million US dollars from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), we plan to establish 10 regional Public Health Emergency Operations Centres nationwide in Ghana,” he noted.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Kuma Aboagye said the International Health Regulation (IHR) 2005 requires countries to continuously develop, strengthen, and maintain the capacity to respond promptly and effectively to public health threats. He noted that the setting up of the 4th public health emergency operation centre in the country is therefore significant in that regard and serves as a central location to coordinate operational information and resources for the strategic management of public health emergencies in the country.
According to him, the functionality of the national EOC is dependent on the functionality and coordination of regional EOC’s to coordinate their activities to be able to feed the national level for prompt decision-making.
“The three EOC’s being used for tracking events in the regions have so far tracked the following public health events; tracking the ongoing COVID-19 response and other epidermis-prone diseases such as meningitis, tracking the Marburg virus and monkeypox cases, conducting and after action review of diseases such as scabies outbreaks and others which occurred in the Northern region and most importantly, conducting media scans to tracking rumours ongoing in the region. And so when people are talking on radio about their feelings and about the effects of things, we get to know who are they, what are the age groups, where are they located so that we can target messages directly to them,” he added.
The 4th Public Health Emergency operation centre estimated at thousands of US dollars was set up through the collaborative effort of the Ghana Health Service with support from the Korea International Cooperation Agency(KOICA), the United State Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the World Health Organisation.
