Ohenenana cautions Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research

Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research,

Let me first thank you exceedingly for the support your institute continue to offer us in the covid-19 fight. God bless the management, researchers, lab assistants and all workers.

Ethics has everything to do with management and organization’s image. Ethics, then, is as much an organisational as a personal issue. Managers who fail to provide proper leadership and institute systems that facilitate ethical conduct share responsibility with those who conceive, execute, and knowingly benefit from corporate misdeed.

Some medical experts, doctors, and laboratory experts have started challenging or questioning the authenticity of the covid-19 tested figures released by government based on information available to them. Some politicians always place their political interest above all other interest hence, the need to tread with caution when dealing with them. Research integrity is inherently linked to the quality and excellence of research and science for policy, something your outfit has done over the years dexterously.

You are the principal testing institution for the coronavirus and millions of Ghanaians and Africans are closely monitoring your work because of your enviable record and the high standard you’ve set for yourself. Government’s latest decisions relative to the covid-19 fight have received condemnation from medical experts, opinion leaders and the some citizens. Based on W.H.O’s guidelines and covid-19 caution statements, one can rightly predict that the decisions if not checked, can create problems for the country. The figures emanating from your outfit and other covid-19 testing institutions have come under serious public scrutiny with many expressing doubt about the authenticity of the figures. Please, protect the hard won image of your institute. Don’t allow political propagandists turn your institute into a propaganda outfit where they will package their lies and throw them out for political convenience.

Because of your huge integrity and powerful record, there are always clear expectations for your institute to systematically work to promote responsible conduct in research, strengthen research integrity and reduce the risk of research misconduct. Leave the politicians to engage in their political chess game. It is about science and nature. No soul created by our father in heaven can manipulate it to his or her advantage. And posterity will never forgive us if we allow mischievous political characters push us to do what we know and deem wrong and unhealthy.

Kindly feed the public with the correct figures to enable us prepare ourselves physically, economically, socially and mentally towards our future endeavors

Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research
World Health Organization Ghana

By Ohenenana Obonti Krow