Coronavirus: Don't self medicate if you show symptoms - GMA advises

The President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr. Frank Ankobea has encouraged Ghanaians to seek immediate medical attention if they show and feel any symptoms of the COVID-19 virus.

According to him, self-medication makes it difficult for medical health professionals to care for such patients, and puts them and their families at high risk. Whiles placing health professionals also at a high risk of infection.

He noted that at the beginning, COVID-19 cases recorded were from mild to severe with very few critical cases. But now, COVID-19 cases recorded are between severe to critical and this can be attributed to patients self-medicating.

“Some people when sick and show symptoms of the COVID-19 pandemic will not come to the hospital. They will rather be buying medicine to treat themselves and only come to the hospital when they are worse”, he said.

Dr. Ankobea made this known in an interview with Samuel Eshun, host of the Happy Morning Show aired on e.TV Ghana and Happy 98.9 FM.

He disclosed that the spike in the country’s positive cases has made the then less packed, and empty treatment centres now packed with patients sicker than before.

Speaking on the treatment module for the coronavirus, Dr. Ankobea said, “We have no specific treatment for the virus but we have drugs to manage the symptoms and we have that in stock”.

He advised the populace not to focus on the treatment of the COVID-19 pandemic but rather adhere to safety protocols to prevent contracting the virus entirely.

He, however, admitted that if the positive cases of the virus keep increasing, the available drugs will not be enough to treat them. “If we don’t focus on prevention, there will be trouble for us”, he stated.

Ghana’s cases of the COVID-19 pandemic has reached an average of six hundred (600) cases per day. The Ghana Medical Association has however given recommendations to the government on what to do to help curb the spread.