Professor John Owusu Gyapong, Vice-Chancellor of University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), Ho, has encouraged universities in Ghana to collaborate in their research work.

He said there was the need to work together as a team to make the impact deserved in the country.

"Many of us like to work in our small corners but this requires we work together through consortia across the world and even in this country there is no reason why universities should not work much closer."

Addressing members of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) during its 20th biennial delegates conference in the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Tarkwa, Prof. Gyapong advised Ghanaians to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously.

"Where we are today epidemiology shows that we have three spikes. There has been some evolution and in the evolutionary process. We are now getting new variants, we are not sure what will happen next so we need to take all precautions. Let us not lower our guards as we did prior to the election as if the battle has ended," he said.

He said, "Indeed the battle is not over we need to understand how to get things done let's continue to adhere to the COVID-19 safety protocols and ensure that we protect ourselves and family members. I don't know how many of you have been fully vaccinated."

Prof Gyapong said, "There was a point in time because of the rumour that was going on people did not want to take the vaccine but l can assure you that is the best we have in hand now."

He said the pandemic has brought a major challenge to the educational institutions, stressing that "we need to examine and re-consider how we would manage our digital educational system because that is now becoming part of us."

According to him "Even if the COVID pandemic should end with the kind of infrastructure that we have developed it would be very unwise to throw away all the online teaching platforms, added that this would require a very good and effective policy."

"The policies that l have seen around are not good enough and we need to collaborate as institutions to ensure that we are on top of issues but above all, since we are the knowledge hub we should see how best we can take advantage of the opportunities that come our way to develop science and make sure that we were on top of issues," he pointed out.