Accra, Kumasi identified as coronavirus epicentres in Ghana – Health Minister
- On March 31, 2020
March 24, 2020 | Citi News Room
Two cities – Accra in the Greater Accra Region and Kumasi in the Ashanti Region have been identified as the hotspots of COVID-19 in Ghana, Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu has said.
It follows the latest confirmation of 25 new coronavirus cases bringing to total, 52 confirmed cases in the country.
Addressing the press today (Tuesday, March 24, 2020) in Accra, the Health Minister said following the case management by health officials, “What we have identified so far is that, we can describe two areas in Ghana now as our own epicentres. Accra and Tema together and Kumasi”.
“In Accra, we have deployed 98 field officers, epidemiologists and community health nurses who have been trained in tracing people. In Kumasi, we have deployed about 50 trained people who are also doing contact tracing,” the Minister added.
Kwaku Agyemang Manu, therefore, urged Ghanaians to assist health officials in identifying persons who might be at risk of the pandemic in a bid to tackle the horizontal spread of the virus in the country.
“The advice I will give now by this evidence is the fact that…all those our brothers and sisters who have come in [from abroad] we should assist them to put themselves in self-quarantine if we haven’t tracked them yet. We should talk to health authorities in the areas where they live to send teams to serve them such that we can protect the population against community spread that we have seen in the country at the moment.”
The 25 new cases were confirmed among the 1,030 people who are under mandatory quarantine in the country after arriving at the Kotoka International Airport hours to the deadline for the closure of the country’s borders.
Ghana’s death toll has also risen to two as of Monday, March 23, 2020.
611 people out of the 1030 people in self-quarantine have so far been tested for the Coronavirus and only 185 of the number have their results released.
The Ministry is yet to receive the remaining results.