During a ceremony hosted at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Accra on June 12, Ambassador Robert P. Jackson and Ambassador Sungsoo Kim signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen the health partnerships of both nations with the Republic of Ghana. Deputy Director General of the Ghana Health Service Dr. Gloria Quansah Asare joined the ambassadors at the event.
The MoU established a $7.2 million collaboration between the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) to support the Government of Ghana (GoG) achieve International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005 through implementation of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). The objective of this three year project is to improve the health security capabilities of Ghana across three of GHSA’s action packages: laboratory systems strengthening, workforce development, and emergency preparedness. The project will be implemented and overseen in partnership between the Republic of Ghana, the Republic of Korea, and the United States of America. KOICA’s partnership supports CDC’s health security portfolio through 2021.
The purpose and scope of the International Health Regulations (2005) are “to prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.”
Read more here: http://www.who.int/ihr/publications/9789241580496/en/. The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) was launched in February 2014 and is a growing partnership of over 64 nations, international organizations, and non-governmental stakeholders to help build countries’ capacity to help create a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats and elevate global health security as a national and global priority. Read more here:https://www.ghsagenda.org/.
