The World Health Organization office in Sierra Leone has secured a grant of €500,000 from the German Technical Cooperation (GIZ) to increase the country’s COVID-19 testing capacity from 500 to 1000 tests per day.
The grant will ensure the procurement of urgently needed testing equipment; WHO will facilitate the timely procurement and supply of consumables and equipment for coronavirus testing, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, viral isolation kits, and viral transport media with swabs.
The support is also expected to have long term benefits, including improvement of the skill sets of laboratory staff and the diagnostic sector in general.
The equipment would double the country’s testing capacity as it moves towards community testing and testing in various hotspots. The support aims to enable the Ministry of Health and Sanitation to upgrade laboratory infrastructure in three areas, to boost the number of laboratories capable of handling PCR testing.
WHO is also supporting the scale up of laboratory testing through the recruitment and training of 30 laboratory scientists, and will provide incentives to the recruited lab scientist for a period of 6 months. Additionally, it has hired two international consultants to support training and mentorship of laboratory scientists.