01.11.2025

A very big congratulations to Prof. (Mrs.) Linda Batsa Debrah, principal investigator, TAKeOFF-Ghana­­­­ — on your appointment as the Director of the German-West African Centre for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention (G-WAC), Ghana.

The German-West African Centre for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention (G-WAC) is hosted by the College of Health Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. The Centre collaborates with the Technical University Berlin, Charité-University of Medicine Berlin and University of Bonn, Germany.

The Centre aims to address the existential threat of pandemics to the health and welfare of people through trans- and inter-disciplinary research projects targeting both the main drivers of pandemics (e.g. health impact of wild habitat encroachment, extensive agriculture and climate change, transfer of pathogens from wild animals to humans) and the key pillars of resilient health systems in the WHO framework (e.g. effective governance, sustainable financing mechanisms, appropriate human resource capacity, availability of essential medicines and technology, reliable health information, and responsive health service delivery) using One Health approaches.

G-WAC is funded through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) using funding from the German Federal Foreign Office for the establishment of the Global Health and Pandemic Prevention centre at KNUST.

External links: 

German-West African Centre for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention (G-WAC)

Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR)