The Chairperson of the COVID-19 National Trust Fund, Justice Sophia Akuffo, has commended the use of homegrown talent in the construction of the country’s first infectious disease center.

The former Chief Justice was speaking after touring the Ghana Infectious Disease Centre (GIDC), constructed under the auspices of the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund.

“Looking at the facility, the way it’s been laid out for total safety of the medical staff, total safety of the patients, total safety of the public it looks very comfortable. It looks very clean,” she said. “It’s a very well thought out, a very humane installation that has been built and the beauty of it is that most of the inputs for the building and most of all the skills are Ghanaian. It’s home grown.”

The Ghana Infectious Disease Centre was constructed with funding from private and public sector organisations, including the National Covid-19 Trust Fund, of which Madam Akuffo is chair.

It was commissioned last week and is expected to start receiving its first batch of patients soon. The facility has spurred calls for a rethink of national development efforts for greater emphasis to be placed on the use of indigenous expertise and local inputs.

“We should have more of these,” Justice Akuffo said. “We have the professionals who are more than capable of doing this sort of work, initiating and innovating this new system. In a way COVID-19 has taught a lot and a lot of positives will come out of it.”

Justice Akufo urged Ghanaians to keep contributing both in cash and in kind to the national battle against Covid-19 “so that we can continue to support the construction of such facilities; so that we can continue the medical fight against the pandemic.”

The Former Chief Justice was accompanied on her tour of the Ghana Infectious Disease Centre by members of the Covid-19 National Trust Fund, including the former Anglican Archbishop of Accra and Secretary to the Fund, Collins Asare.