Coronavirus: Don’t produce your own face masks, they can’t protect you – Former GHS boss

A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Dr Appiah Denkyira has warned Ghanaians against producing and wearing their own face or nose masks because it cannot protect them from the deadly coronavirus.

According to him, like the hand sanitizers, the nose and face masks must meet certain standards.

Dr Denkyira said all nose or face masks must meet the standards of the Ghana Standard Board Authority.

“You cannot just put on any ordinary face and nose masks because when it soaks it affects the bearer so it is not advisable to produce your own nose or face mask,” he stated.

Speaking on the Morning Starr with Francis Abban Tuesday, the physician said government’s move to produce masks locally is commendable.

He called on the government to target densely populated areas such as Choker, James Towm, Nima and others for screening.

Ghana’s total case count for COVID-19 has jumped to 287 after the country recorded 73 more cases, the Ghana Health Service has announced.

The GHS stated that the cases were detected following measures for enhanced contact tracing and testing.

So far a total of 287 cases of COVID-19 with five (5) deaths have been recorded. The regional distribution of the cases are as follows: Greater Accra Region has most cases (258) followed by the Ashanti Region (18), Northern Region (10), Upper West Region (1), Eastern Region (1) and Upper East Region (1).

A total of 172 cases were reported from the routine and enhanced surveillance activities and those from travellers under mandatory quarantine in both Accra and Tamale are 115.

The period for mandatory quarantine for travellers who arrived 21-22 March 2020 has ended. In all, a total 1,030 travellers were quarantined during the period. Out of these, 79 (7.7%) were positive during the initial testing whilst 951 were negative.

Twenty-six (26) among those that were initially negative were found to have converted to be positive at the exit screening, bringing to a total of 105 which constitutes 10.2% among the travellers that were quarantined.