The government of the Netherlands has commended the Government of Ghana for exhibiting strong political will and taking timely decisions in the interest of safety and wellbeing of the citizens since the outbreak of the pandemic.

It said beyond the several health interventions, the Dutch Government has noted with great admiration the far-reaching socio economic interventions introduced by the government to lessen the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on Ghanaians especially the poor.

The Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Ron Strikker stated this during the stakeholder briefing on the establishment of National Quality Assurance Programme for COVID-19 testing laboratories.

He said he was convinced that the strong partnership between the Ghanaian health authorities and the Dutch Government had helped improve the quality of COVID-19 test results in Ghana.

He said this partnership with Ghana was part of efforts to support the 23 COVID-19 testing laboratories in the country to enable them deliver results that meet the global standards, regardless of their location in the country.

“I am personally proud of the work done by the Ministry of Health, the GHS National Laboratory Network for COVID-19 Testing, the FDA, the HeFRA and PharmAccess Foundation,” Mr. Striker noted

Proficiency

According to Mr. Strikker, the National Quality Assurance Programme (NQAP) for COVID-19 testing laboratories was designed to further strengthen and maintain the capacity of Ghanaian laboratories in the area of the accuracy of test results in all COVID-19 testing laboratories, as well as effective data management of test results.

He noted that two agencies, the Health Facilities Regulatory Authority (HeFRA) and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) have the capacity to enforce the maintenance of these NQAP standards to guarantee uniformity in COVID-19 test results in Ghana now and the coming years.

As a member of the European Union which is the highest donor to the COVAX facility, the Ambassador said his government was committed to contributing to the agenda of making the COVID-19 vaccines available to every country in the world, regardless of its economic status.

Having contributed to COVAX, the platform, which plans to provide free vaccines for about 20 per cent of Ghana's population, he said his government was impressed by the efforts of the government of Ghana.

He added, “I am excited about the delivery of some 600,000 doses of the Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccines in the country on February 24, 2021.”