The UK Government through its Animal Health System Strengthening (AHSS) project, has donated equipment to Ghana’s Veterinary Services to enhance their efforts to achieve accreditation of their diagnostic laboratories against international standards. This marks a significant milestone in Ghana’s quest to strengthen its animal health system to better protect from, detect, and respond to known and emerging zoonotic diseases.

The procurement of the equipment by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), an agency of the UK’s Department of Food, Environment, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), was in response to a request by the Veterinary Services Directorate.

The items, including the Eppendorf Centrifuge 5425 With Rotors, Campylobacter blood-free selective agar CCDA, and other reagents, are to reinforce the veterinary laboratory diagnostic capacities in Accra and Kumasi veterinary Laboratories towards achieving an International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) accreditation of the diagnostic laboratories.

Speaking at a brief ceremony in Accra to hand over the equipment, the Development Director for the British High Commission in Ghana, Beth Cadman, commended the Veterinary Services Directorate, VSD, for their crucial role in preventing and controlling known and emerging animal diseases and, to a large extent, protecting public health in the country. She stated that Ghana is one of the UK’s longest-standing and strongest partners in Africa. She further assured the government of Ghana of continuous support to provide UK assistance to build a resilient animal health system.

Receiving the donation on behalf of the Veterinary Services Directorate, Head of the Accra Veterinary Laboratory, Dr. Theophilus Odoom, revealed that the DEFRA AHSS project has come at an opportune time to improve their laboratory quality management. He assured them of the productive utilisation of the equipment to achieve their goal of ISO certification.

The Registrar of the Veterinary Council of Ghana, Kingsley Mickey Aryee, noted that it is the mandate of the Veterinary Council of Ghana to ensure animal health standards are maintained in the country, and it is in that vein that they are thankful to DEFRA’s AHSS project intervention to ensure VSD’s laboratory quality management system is further enhanced.

The AHSS project has been working with the Veterinary Services to strengthen capabilities in the animal health system through the implementation of the Animal Health Systems Strengthening (AHSS) project. This project has been helping the laboratories improve their quality management systems and disease surveillance capabilities for the Veterinary Service, thus reducing the frequency and impact of animal disease outbreaks and minimising their emergence and transmission.