The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has warned of a much severe third wave of COVID-19 in the country.
It has, therefore, urged members of the public to brace up and adhere to stricter safety protocols to mitigate the risk of contracting the virus.
The Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, who gave the caution, said “significant increases” in recorded cases of COVID-19 in the last four weeks were indicative that the country was at risk of experiencing a severer wave of the virus.
“There have been significant increases in severe and critical cases; increases in COVID-19 cases of international travels at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), outbreaks in schools and the number of districts reporting daily cases, and this means there is a high risk of a much severe wave of the virus,” he said.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye gave the warning at the Ministry of Information’s press briefing in Accra yesterday.
Updates
Providing updates on COVID-19 figures, he said as of July 25, this year, Ghana had recorded 102,569 COVID-19 cases from 1,412,464 tests, with a positivity rate of 7.3 per cent.
He said out of the total recorded cases, 97,213 people had recovered, 823 had died, while 4,983 cases were still active.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye added that out of the 248 people currently on admission at treatment facilities, 17 were in critical condition, 86 were severe cases, while 143 of them had mild-to-moderate conditions.
Touching on schools, he said 2,647 students in 392 schools across the country contracted the virus, out of which 166 of the cases were still active.
Regarding international travels, he said as of July 27, this year, 2,249 positive cases had been recorded from 390,527 tests at the KIA.
According to him, 63 per cent of the positive cases were males, with 37 per cent being females.
Also, he said, Ghanaians constituted 41 per cent of the total COVID-19 cases at the KIA, with non-Ghanaians representing 58 per cent.
Triggers
Dr Kuma-Aboagye said the surge in COVID-19 cases was largely because of the poor adherence to the safety protocols, such as washing of hands under running water, maintaining social distance and not using alcohol-based hand sanitiser.
“There is virtually non-existent enforcement of COVID-19 protocols and non-adherence to isolation by affected people undergoing home treatment,” he said.
He warned that there were inadequate isolation centres to manage the surge in COVID-19 cases, saying that could pose a serious threat to the country in the looming third wave of the pandemic.
The GHS Director-General said the low vaccination coverage in the country was also a great threat as the third wave beckoned.
However, he said, there was hope of the arrival of various kinds of vaccines before the end of the year to fight the virus.
Source: graphic.com.gh
