Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), on Friday, March 18, 2022, visited the Institute to interact with the Director and staff of the Institute. He used the opportunity to congratulate Prof. Dorothy Yeboah-Manu on her appointment as the first female Director of NMIMR and to staff for the hard work, timely interventions, and innovative contributions towards the fight against the pandemic.

“Noguchi has played a central role in the response not just for Ghana but for the sub-region. The fact that we are here today means that there is hope and I will always promote Noguchi wherever I go” he added.

 Dr. Nkengasong indicated that the use of science to address public health threats has been phenomenal over the past years. Adding that “I continue to believe that we will overcome this pandemic with good science and the new generation of vaccines will even be better than this first generation of vaccines.

According to Dr. Nkengasong, there is a lot of potential for the future which will help for further research activities. “I do not think we have explored enough the potential of Noguchi in terms of diagnostics. There should be the ability to use science to unlock the potential to fight pandemics in the areas of diagnostics and vaccine manufacturing. Good science is courage. You cannot be innovative if you cannot fail. Innovation means you are ready to take risks”.  He further explained that through the power of strong institutional and national collaborations between the Institute and Africa CDC, there will be a collective resilience agenda where individual institutions will have the ability to take initiatives and not necessarily wait on instructions from the top to act.

 On her part, Prof. Dorothy Yeboah-Manu expressed her appreciation for the efforts made by Africa CDC in providing equipment that facilitated research activities especially when the pandemic was at its peak.

 “Ghana, through Noguchi did well to fight against the pandemic with support coming in from the Africa CDC, especially through the NGS’s Core Facilities helping us to build  the regional sequencing hub has worked well and has been useful, particularly in response to COVI-19”, she reiterated

Prof. William Ampofo, now Chair of the African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative, also lauded the role of Africa CDC in pushing forward the platforms that have helped Africa to manage the pandemic.