President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has described as encouraging, the presence of young Ghanaian medical research scientists at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR).

The development, he said, was good for the nation’s future given the crucial role scientists played in any society’s development and growth.

“It is very encouraging that many scientists are emerging and having the opportunity to put their knowledge to practical and concrete use,” the President remarked when he paid a working visit to the facility at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), in Kumasi.

The visit was to enable him to assess at first-hand operations of the Centre, an international platform for biomedical research, mandated to carry out tests on and validate COVID-19 blood samples.

KCCR had since March 12, this year, processed more than 49, 920 blood samples presented to the facility from health facilities, especially in the northern sector of the country.

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) gathered that 913 of the samples tested positive.

Facilities inspected by the President at the Centre included; the COVID evaluation, negative pressure (biosafety level three) and DNA isolation laboratories, as well as other testing laboratories.

President Nana Akufo-Addo commended scientists and other staff at the KCCR for the excellent job they were doing in Ghana’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Richard Odame Phillips, Scientific Director at the KCCR, disclosed that the Centre had received a specialized DNA robot, which could extract 48 samples within 17 minutes.

This had replaced the manual extraction method, which were used for isolating DNA of the samples presented to the facility.

Professor Philips appealed to the government for more of such specialized robots in order to facilitate work of the scientists.

Prof. Kwasi Obiri-Danso, Vice-Chancellor of the KNUST, assured the President of the University’s commitment to training more local scientists to spearhead the nation’s quest for sustainable growth through research and cutting-edge technology.