Coronavirus: 100-bed Infectious Disease Centre to be operationalized soon – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced that the 100-bed Infectious Disease Centre will be opened in the coming days to aid in the country’s fight against the Coronavirus pandemic.

In his 19th address on the pandemic, Nana Akufo-Addo said that the facility which will be operationalized in the coming days will be managed by the Ghana Health Service.

Nana Akufo-Addo said that despite the number of hospitalized covid-19 victims being low, it is imperative that the country provides adequate care for the patients.

“In as much as our hospitalization rates are very low, care for the sick and the provision of treatment remain an important aspect of our strategy. To this end, the one hundred-bed Ghana Infectious Diseases Centre, located at the Ga East Hospital, will be opened in the next few days, under the management of the Ghana Health Service,” he hinted.

President Akufo-Addo also said that the government has made moves to procure more health equipment and PPEs to enhance healthcare delivery in the country.

“The provision of adequate medicines, equipment, and personal protective equipment to enable health workers to attend to home-based patients has also been guaranteed.”

Nana Akufo-Addo warned leaders of the various political parties to make mask wearing a part of their campaigns.

"Fellow Ghanaians, with a month to the conduct of the 7th December presidential and parliamentary elections, there would, obviously, be an intensification of political party activities in all parts of the country, with its accompanying human contact. Nevertheless, I encourage political party leaders and supporters, at the very at least, to wear the mask at all times at these gatherings.

“This task is not only for the leaders of our political parties. All of us, in the Executive, Legislature, Judiciary, public sector, security agencies, private sector, civil society, professional and trade associations, religious bodies, traditional authorities and ordinary citizens, must do what we can, in this period, to help minimize disease transmission".

In a bid to enhance contact tracing measures, the president says it has instructed the release of vehicles and other logistics.

“I have instructed the release of additional logistics, including vehicles, to the Ghana Health Service in order to help beef up contact tracing, and the supervision and monitoring of asymptomatic cases being managed from home...We are also employing the use of technology to augment our contact tracing efforts, as well as the supervision and monitoring of home care cases," he added.