Right: Training at the CFIA's Lethbridge lab (2019). Left: An employee working on COVID-19 samples at the modular lab in Pong-Tamale, Ghana (2020). Photos courtesy the Government of Canada.

By Justin Goulet

Canada-Ghana Partnership

COVID-19 testing in Ghana boosted by Canadian support

Jun 14, 2020 | 9:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A unique partnership between scientists in Canada and Ghana is helping lead the effort to combat COVID-19 in West Africa.

The team-up dates back to 2012, when Ghana approached Global Affairs Canada (GAC) for assistance in detecting and defeating dangerous zoonotic pathogens.

These pathogens, also known as agents, are transmissible from animals to humans, and can cause severe illness.

They can also be used for bioterrorism, according to Dr. Kingsley Amoako, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) team lead and director at the CFIA’s Lethbridge laboratory.

“Looking at the situation on the ground, some of these agents were not properly secured,” he told LNN.

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Ghana’s request for assistance was forwarded to GAC’s Weapons Threat Reduction Program. This is Canada’s contribution to the G7-led Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.

Following a detailed assessment, GAC designed a plan to help staff in Ghana contain and mitigate the threats of dangerous pathogens.

Dr. Amoako said that in 2014, modular labs were established in three locations across Ghana: its capital of Accra, Takoradi (in western Ghana) and Pong-Tamale (in northern Ghana).

“These are state of the art labs that are bio-containment labs that can be used to handle some of these dangerous pathogens,” he said.

The labs were put under the watch and responsibility of Ghana’s Veterinary Services Directorate.

BRINGING IN AN ALLY

Dr. Amoako said over the years, GAC realized that more capacity was needed for these labs.

So, in 2018, GAC connected with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which Dr. Amoako noted was involved in a number of twinning projects to work with developing countries.

“A lab would be attached to a lab here [in Canada] and then the expertise the CFIA has in terms of working with biocontainment labs would then be transferred or would be shared with these labs in developing countries,” he explained.

Essentially, the labs in Canada would serve as ‘parent’ or ‘advisory’ labs to these in the partnering community. Dr. Amoako, along with Dr. Yohannes Berhane and Dr. Aruna Ambagala, devised a plan to address some gaps in Ghana.

Dr. Amoako said some of those gaps included a lack of documented procedures when handling dangerous pathogens in the Ghana labs, as well as a shortage of equipment and supplies for diagnostic testing, and training for staff.

He said a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was put in place between GAC and the CFIA to improve the operations at the modular labs in Ghana.

TRAINING IN CANADA

Part of the improvement process included bringing the Ghanaian teams to CFIA labs in both Lethbridge and Winnipeg in 2019. Staff were trained in the technical skills needed to detect and identify diseases like anthrax, African swine fever, the avian flu, foot and mouth disease as well as several others.

“The plan that we put in place was to invite some of the staff from Ghana to come over to Canada and then see how our bio-containment labs operate,” said Dr. Amoako.

He added that three Ghanaian staff were in Lethbridge and three others in Winnipeg, and the training was very intense. It exposed them to working in a certified biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory.

They were also trained on implemented and documenting proper procedures, such as entering and exiting a lab that deals with harmful viruses, quality assurance to ensure results from pathogen testing is accurate, and the correct use of personnel protective equipment (PPE).

The team from Canada went to Ghana in November of 2019 to reinforce the training done earlier in the year, and to implement training measures in the Ghana labs.

“In other words, [we were] using the things that they have in their labs, simulating some of the things that we have done [in Canada]. So, that was something that we did in November. At the same time, we provided them with some equipment,” Dr. Amoako told LNN.

Thanks to funding from GAC, the CFIA team was able to secure items like real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) instruments, which are recommended worldwide for COVID-19 testing.

COVID-19

Flash-forward to February 2020, when Africa detected its first case of COVID-19.

“Some of us here, we looked at it and said down the road, this could be very overwhelming for the government of Ghana,” Dr. Amoako said.

“So, even though they weren’t working directly with this virus [COVID-19, during training], the best practices, the biosecurity, the entry-exit, the PPE – personnel protective equipment that we provided them, they would all be relevant in working [on COVID-19]. We organized a conference call with them, and we began discussing how those labs and the expertise that they have built could be used for the detection of COVID-19.”

He said the biocontainment labs are critical to studying the virus, and a lot of the PPE provided to Ghanaian staff can be used to protect against the novel coronavirus.

Dr. Amoako said it’s been a major “team effort”.

“We’ve seen the impact that Canada is making internationally or globally around the world. This is one example of some of the international contributions that Canada is making. We thanks Global Affairs Canada for partnering with CFIA, which definitely allowed us to be a part of this project, and then also the folks in Ghana who we have worked with successfully,” he said.

“I would say it’s teamwork, teamwork between our labs in Winnipeg, Global Affairs for their support and then with our colleagues on the ground. It’s all teamwork that has resulted in what we’re witnessing.”

Now thanks to that partnership and ongoing communication between the teams in Ghana and Canada, the West African country is equipped to efficiently test for COVID-19.

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