The United Kingdom has heaped praises on the Government of Ghana for its innovative ways in handling and fighting the novel coronavirus that has infected over 3,000 people in the country.
Ghana, together with other countries in a virtual meeting briefed the World Health Organisation (WHO) on strategies introduced by their governments to fight COVID-19.
After the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye made his presentation by submitting plans of the Ghanaian government in dealing with the pandemic, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of UK Mission to the WTO, UN and other International Organisations, Julian Braithwaite, at the WHO virtual meeting praised Ghana for using innovative methods in fighting the pandemic and also easing the restrictions on movements of persons.
According to him, Ghana’s use of drones to deliver testing samples and PPEs shows how far the country has progressed with the use of technology in combating the pandemic.
The impressed UK Ambassador said, “With what we’ve heard today, a number of countries are now taking their first steps to lifting the lockdown measures and we’ve heard some very innovative examples of what different countries are doing as taking Ghana’s example of using drones for deliveries.”
Ghana’s innovative decision to use drones to deliver PPEs and samples for testing in the fight against coronavirus gained international recognition making the United States of America (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK) adopt the method of using drones for the fight against COVID-19.
The Government of Ghana employed the services of Zipline to use drones in the delivery of urgent medical essentials and swab samples from remote communities to designated testing centres across the country.
Ghana became the first country in the world to employ this innovation since COVID-19 broke out. Prior to this, Ghana had used drones to deliver urgent medical supplies to remote communities since the Zipline Service was launched by Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia last year.
The introduction of the drones was criticised by the opposition NDC who said the service was not needed in the country.
Events, especially during the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, have however proved that the government was right in tapping into the use of technology in solving urgent health issues.
Ghana has two main drone stations at Omenako in the Eastern Region and Mampong in the Ashanti Region.
Works are also nearing completion for the third and forth zones at Kukua near Walewale, in the North East Region and Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region.
Source: ABCNewsgh.com
