"Duplicate Tests Not Part of Ghana’s Announced Covid-19 Figures" – Noguchi Clarifies

The Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research has debunked assertions that Ghana’s Covid-19 tested cases include duplicate cases of testing.

According to institute, the 68,591 covid-19 test results made public are from unique cases.

A top official of Noguchi made the remark following some contentions and conflicting comments from some government officials.

For instance, the Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare publicly stated that duplicate tests have significantly contributed to the high number of tests recorded on covid-19.

“Out of the 68,591 tested cases … it includes duplicate tests because, as I said, when somebody is tested and is isolated and being treated, after 14 days you do a second test, the person can be positive.

“If he’s positive, he’s still counted as a test. So you don’t count the individual, you count the number of tests. This means that the number of patients will definitely be less than the number of tests,” he explained.

But Noguchi’s Head of Virology, Professor William Ampofo, explained that: “those counts for the retests of people who are positive are in separate databases. It is not counted among those who we are screening for the first time.”

“When we provide the cumulative figures to the Ghana Health Service, it excludes those who have been retested… what Ghana Health Service is reporting is the number of individuals who are tested,” he said.

Addressing a press briefing on Wednesday morning, Dr. Ampofo also noted that every individual is assigned a case investigation form that outlines the testing process.

Results are not accepted without case investigation form and “each test result is based on the sample and the case investigation forms”.

Even if the retesting was added to the data made public, Prof. Ampofo noted that it would be insignificant.

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“Even if you add them, for the close to 80,000 individuals who have been tested, that will just be 480 test results.”

Noguchi currently has a backlog of 6,000 cases.

Prof. Ampofo said that his outfit had processed 76,921 samples of which 70,921 had been tested.

He expects they “will be able to clear this backlog by the end of this week.”

“Once we are able to sort out the backlog, then they will be able to calculate the rate of infection, they will be able to present data on incidence and we will all understand how the spread has actually taken place.”

According to the Noguchi Head of Virology, the centre currently has “over 150 people working three shifts 24/7.”

The other major testing outpost in Ghana, the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR), has a backlog of about 10,000, according to Prof. Ampofo.

It has one lab with a “staff strength of about 15 to 20” and has tested 15,280 samples out of 25,219 samples processed.

To improve efficiency in the processing of samples, the Ghana Health Service is set to introduce a barcode system.

“We wish we had done this from the beginning,” Prof. Ampofo admitted during the briefing.

“Each sample will have a barcode with a geographical location of where the sample is collected, the sample will arrive in the lab, the barcode will be read, and then the results will be transmitted electronically from the lab back to the central database,” he explained.

Currently, Ghana’s novel coronavirus cases have increased to 1,154.