Coronavirus: Test more – GMA advises govt

President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr Frank Ankobea, has said although Ghana is doing well in curtailing the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), there is the need to expand testing.

He said on the 3FM Sunrise on Monday, August 17, that there may be some people carrying the virus but are unaware. “It is only when they are tested that the virus would be found and treated accordingly,” he noted.

He was reacting to a comment by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that the measures his government outlined to curtail the spread of the virus in the country are achieving results.

In his address to the nation on Sunday, August 16, Akufo-Addo revealed that there currently are no active cases in the North East, Savannah, Upper East and Upper West regions.

This, he attributed to the measures that were put in place to deal with the spread.

“As of Saturday, the active cases stand at 1,847. This is a clear indication that government policies are working.

“Currently, there are no recorded Covid-19 cases in the North East Savannah, Upper East, and Upper West Regions and I charge the residents to do everything possible to maintain that situation.

“Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central, Eastern, and Western continue to be the regions with the highest number of active cases. Thus far, a total of 40,567 persons have recovered from the virus. This means our recovery rate has improved from 89.5% to 95.1% in three weeks. Our death rate continues, mercifully, to be low at .5%,” he said.

Dr Ankobea said “We have done 400,000 and over tests and what I will say is that if you do a comparative analysis probably, we have done well but we need to do more.

“People should not take it that the virus is gone. The fact that we don’t have any active cases in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West and all those places does not mean the virus is not there.

“What it is showing is that we need to test more because there may be somebody in the community who has not been tested and they are carrying the virus.”