Coronavirus: Results from unapproved test kits cannot be accepted – NOGUCHI

Senior Research Fellow with the Immunology Department of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NNIMR), Dr. Kwadwo Asamoah Kusi insists it is not advisable for the country to take COVID-19 test results from unauthorized test kits.

He notes that officials at various points of entry into the country can only accept results from test kits approved by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA).

“As a nation, we have a test kit approved by the FDA so it will be problematic for travellers to come along with their own text kits which we don’t even know the manufacturers. It is not advisable for us to accept results from people who have their own test kits. It is not right,” he stated.

He shared this position after a video circulating on social media showed a woman criticizing the viability of Ghana’s antigen test. After testing positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Ghana from the United Kingdom (UK), she personally retook the test twice in the hotel room in which she was quarantined.

From her personal test kits, she tested negative for the virus and questioned the test she was subjected to at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

According to Dr. Asamoah Kusi, the said woman’s test kit may be very reliable “but as a nation, we have not certified the test kit she used and cannot accept the results. Just as COVID-19 test result outside of an unapproved Ghana Health Service (GHS) cannot be accepted, that applies to test kits and that is the law.”

“The woman in question’s test kit may be the best but its results cannot be accepted if it has not been approved by the FDA,” she reiterated.

In an interview on the Happy Morning Show with Samuel Eshun, he admitted every system known to man has its flaws and must be reviewed regularly, “and I think can review ours now.”

He believes anyone who undergoes the PCR test at all points of entry into Ghana must also undergo the PCR testing with the same test sample.

The Ghana Airport Company Limited and Frontier Healthcare Services Limited have partnered to offer testing at the Kotoka International Airport via a test centre within the immediate vicinity. The FIA-Antigen Qualitative Test detects whether there is an acute infection with the virus, and thus the risk of infecting other people they come into contact with. One receives their test results in 12 minutes.

Some travellers have however questioned the credibility of the tests conducted at the airport as they claim they are in contrast with their personal test kits.