Ghana digitises Covid-19 verification to reduce imported cases

The Health Ministry is set to roll out the digital verification of Covid-19 tests in the country from Wednesday, April 21.

This is geared towards enhancing the processes during departure and arrival at Ghana’s air, land, and sea ports.

According to a statement signed by Kwaku Agyemang Manu, the system which is being implemented with the support of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the PanaBIOS Consortium “covers all unauthorised Covid-19 PCR testing laboratories in the country.”

It is expected to “help stop the circulation of fake test results, which if left unchecked would damage the country’s effort to reduce the spread of the Covid-19 infection through imported cases.”

Ghana is the first country to employ the system based on the African Union Trusted Travel and ECOWAS BIOMARS standard, says the April 20 press release.

“All travellers, Airlines and Diplomatic Missions, Port Health, Covid-19 testing laboratories and all other relevant stakeholders in Ghana are informed that only test results and certificates bearing Trust Travel or BIOMARS codes will be considered valid for travel out of Ghana from April 21,” the statement announcing the move read.

The Health Ministry further encouraged all travellers to sign up for the programme to ensure ease in confirming the status of Covid-19 results by logging on to trustedtravel.panabios.org with the same email and address and contact numbers provided during the testing for the virus.

As of April 16, Ghana has 1,334 active cases of the novel coronavirus, 89,604 recoveries/discharges and 771 deaths.