COVID-19: Ghana commences local production of Personal Protective Equipment as number of case surges
April 13, 2020
The local manufacturing companies selected to produce Personal Protective Equipment, PPE, in Ghana have begun production.
The companies have been tasked to locally produce PPE kits for the front-line health workers involved in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The selected companies are Dignity DTRT, Sleek Garments, Cadling Fashions, and Alfie Designs Limited.
And they are to produce among other things, face masks, medical scrubs, hospital gowns and headgears using fabrics from ATL, Volta Star Textiles and GTP.
A visit by the Minister of Trade, Alan Kyerematen, to some four of the garment manufacturing companies in Accra on Saturday, April 11, 2020, indicated that production had seriously commenced.
Encouragement
Mr. Kyerematen, together with a team from both Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Health encouraged both management and workers of the companies to adhere to the World Health Organisation’s preventive protocols.
He also extended the gratitude of the government to the companies and their workers for supporting the fight against this global pandemic.
Personal Protective Equipment- 3.5m Mask to be distributed
Government is expected to take delivery of 3.6m locally produced masks, this was revealed by the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu last week at a press briefing in Accra.
The 3.6 million masks, the Health Minister said, will be distributed to health facilities across the country.
He adds that Government is expecting to receive all the masks from the companies within a week.
“The President is making all efforts to resource the Ministry to ensure that we have adequate numbers of protective equipment. In his speech, he talked about taking the opportunity of the crisis to build local capacities to do some of these things at home”, he explained.
He further added that “as I speak, the Minister of Trade has selected five local firms to sew 3.6 million nose masks. They will start delivery from tomorrow. We will take delivery of 150,000 each day and within the next seven days or so, the whole country will be flooded with these masks, especially for health workers.”
Ghana’s Covid-19 case count
Ghana’s case count now stands at 566 and this came after the Ghana Health Service (GHS) confirmed 158 new cases.
Some new cases were also reported in the Western and Volta regions, which now become the ninth and tenth regions respectively to confirm cases of COVID-19.
The increase in recorded, according to the GHS, is attributable to the ongoing enhanced surveillance exercise.
The breakdown of the 566 positive cases are as follows: 4 people have recovered, 552 cases have been categorised as mild disease on treatment, 2 patients in moderate to severe condition, 8 people have died.
