20 coronavirus treatment centres not being used – Dr Kuma-Aboagye

The government has expanded the number of COVID-19 treatment centres from 33 to 71, to ensure that all infected persons receive quality care.

It has also increased the number of treatment beds from 450 to 700. Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, announced this at a media briefing to give an update on the case management of the respiratory infection.

He said there were currently 20 treatment centres that were not being used. Aside from that, they were creating 12 intensive care unit beds at the Ridge Hospital, Pantang and Dodowa health facilities, to deal with any COVID-19 surge.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye said GHS has reviewed its COVID-19 discharge policy to ease pressure on health facilities across the country.

He explained that the change in policy is in line with revised guidelines by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The initial WHO policy was a test-based strategy.

"Initially, because the numbers were few, this was an adequate policy, but with an increased number of cases, it brought to the fore some challenges," Dr Aboagye indicated.

New discharge policy

He explained that the review would affect patients who do not display symptoms of the virus and patients whose symptoms go away during treatment. He said patients who are asymptomatic will be discharged 14 days after the initial positive without a test.

According to him, asymptomatic patients will do 14 days after testing positive and will be discharged if they show no symptoms after three days. He further explained that each person had a minimum of three tests, and according to the service, the average time for testing negative twice was 14 days based on a sample of 146 cases.

"The service is now of the view that because infected persons without symptoms don't pose any threat, you may now do your negative test at home and then come for review.

With the review in policy, Dr Aboagye expects that quite a significant number of people who still remain in the books of GHS because their laboratory results are not in will now be discharged unless they have conditions.

Ghana's Covid-19 update

Ghana, since the last update, has recorded 339 new cases of the viral disease, bringing its case count to 12,929.

At the same time, there have been 58 recoveries, raising the number of people who have recovered from the infection to 4,468.

With this, the country’s active cases - those tested positive for the virus and receiving treatment, either at home, or isolation centres – are 8,395. Fourteen infected persons are severely ill and four are on ventilators. The death toll still stands at 66.

The 339 new cases per the update were confirmed in eight regions.

Of this, 154 were recorded in 17 districts of the Greater Accra Region, 58 were from the Western Region and 41 were also confirmed in the Ashanti Region.

The rest included the Central Region – 38, Eastern – 15, Volta – 13, Bono East – nine, Northern – nine, and Savannah - two.

Per the latest update, the Greater Accra Region remains the hotspot of the disease in the country with a case count of 7,573, representing almost 60 per cent of the country’s total case load.

The Ashanti Region also has a case count of 2,403 while cases in the Western Region also surpassed the 1,000 mark and now stands at 1,051.

The rest are Central– 732, Eastern – 299, Volta – 291, Upper East – 241, Oti – 101, Western North – 81, Northern – 52, Savannah – 37, Upper West – 32, Bono East – 23, North East – two, Bono – one, and Ahafo – one.