The World Health Organization (WHO) with the support of the World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Facility Fund, donated and installed for Ghana Infectious Disease Center, its very first Arterial Blood Gas Analyzer since its inception, WHO announced yesterday.

The Ghana Infectious Disease Center (GIDC), a 100-bed capacity facility, is the country’s first infectious disease center built with the support of the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The facility is Ghana’s major referral point for COVID-19 patients in need of intensive critical care. GIDC receives support from a number of benevolent individuals and organizations to augment Government’s efforts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners continuously provide technical and logistical support to the center to facilitate effective case management.

About twenty health staff including doctors and nurses have been trained on the use of the equipment.


Dr Christian Owoo, Coordinator for Severe and Critical Covid-19 cases says “the equipment will serve as a holistic point of care which will provide a shorter processing time with results in less than 5 minutes instead of the sometimes long waiting time at the laboratory’’.

The Arterial Blood Gas Analyzer will be used to measure combinations of pH, blood gas (i.e. carbon dioxide and oxygen levels), electrolytes, and metabolites parameters from whole blood samples. The critical care equipment will in addition, “promote efficiency and guide critical case management. For example, the impact of any change made in a ventilator can be monitored by taking a sample and analyzing within minutes.” Dr Owoo explained.

With the availability of an Arterial Blood Gas Analyzer, Dr Owoo and his team are another step ahead in providing optimum intensive care to critically ill COVID-19 patients in the country.