A renowned German virologist, Prof. Christian Heinrich Maria Drosten is stressing the need to equip hospitals in Africa with tools and technologies for enhanced detection of infectious diseases.

The head of the Institute of virology at the Charite-Berlin University of Medicine believes this will enable the continent to better deal with infectious disease outbreaks.

“Most important prerequisite for having a better overview of the current diseases in various countries is well equipped hospitals so that they will be able to detect pathogens to find out what causes them when patients visit that hospital,” he said.

He was speaking at the maiden public lecture by the German-West African Centre for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention (G-WAC) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The lecture was on the theme: “Preparing for the next pandemic”.

Prof. Drosten, who has been instrumental in the coronavirus detection, observes inadequate pandemic surveillance across the continent.

He wants the establishment of microbiological laboratories to help identify these diseases.

“Clinicians need to find benefits in submitting samples for diagnosis and what they need is a plain biological setup to provide a proper clinical diagnosis.

“When it comes to identifying pathogens, it has to be on the grounds of a general laboratory,” he said.

G-WAC aims to address the existential threat of global pandemics to the health and welfare of people through Trans-and interdisciplinary research projects.

It targets both the main drivers of pandemics and the key pillars of resilient health systems in the WHO framework using One Health approaches.

Director of G-WAC, Dr. John Amuasi, was optimistic the lecture provided a platform for the understanding of topical issues.

“Public lectures are the forum where we are able to bring our science to everybody and to anybody and given the opportunity to have a better understanding in what we do and its relevance

“What we are trying to do in effect is to meet people underground and provide them with information directly so that the next time we come and say that science says A, B C or D it won’t frustrate them but rather help them understand how science works,” he said.