The establishment of a National Quality Assurance Program for Covid-19 testing laboratories, the first of its kind in Ghana, has raised the cut-off point for laboratories doing Covid-19 testing to eighty (80) percent.
This is to enforce adherence to safety and quality assurance protocols within COVID-19 testing laboratories as part of the National Quality Assurance program for PCR testing and guarantee the accuracy of Covid-19 test results irrespective of which accredited laboratory conducted the test.
The program launched in November 2020 by the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service, has been implemented by partners including the National Laboratory Network for COVID-19 Testing, Food & Drugs Authority, Health Facilities Regulatory Agency and with support from PharmAccess Foundation.
A critical component of the National Quality Assurance Program has been the assessment, technical support and monitoring of the twenty-three (23) accredited Covid-19 PCR testing laboratories nationwide to ensure they have the required human resources, follow the required protocols and use standardized equipment to conduct the tests.
Coordinator for the National Laboratory Network for Covid-19 Testing, Professor William Kwabena Ampofo at a presentation to the program team revealed, “some labs scored one hundred percent, some scored less than that, which is of concern to us.”
He said, “when you test for a pathogen, if it is positive, it is positive, but if you get a false negative result, that’s a problem for COVID. The implication is that, people may be positive and be walking around with false negative results, infecting other people.”
The team of scientists within the National Laboratory Network for Covid-19 Testing visited all the laboratories to assess and provide technical support on laboratory processes, skills of personnel, compliance with protocol and equipment for testing.
Professor Ampofo said a decision has been reached to ensure “all laboratories produce an eighty percent accuracy test, and none of the tests should not be false negative.”
Another challenge the program identified in some of the labs was poor sample taking protocols and inappropriately used of some of the equipment.