Ghana's coronavirus cases witnessing steep decline - GHS

Ghana's active cases of COVID-19 is 4,058 indicating a steep decline in the country's disease burden, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, said on Sunday.

At a media briefing on the country's COVID-19 Case Count and Management in Accra, he said the decline in the active cases was due to the high recovery rate, which was about 85 per cent.

"For instance, if you are at home and eight out of 10 positive cases recover from the virus, it means it is left with two disease burden and so the focus should be on the two, not the 10,” Dr Kuma-Aboagye said.

"So the decline in the disease burden shows that the COVID-19 strategies rolled out by the Government is working, therefore, we should continue observing the safety and preventive etiquettes."

Giving the regional breakdown of the active cases, he said the Greater Accra Region, which had recorded more than 10,000 positive cases, now had only 2,422 active cases.

Currently, there are 3,372 active cases under home management, 387 in isolation facilities and 299 at treatment centres.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye said, for instance, the Ashanti Region, which was one of the epicentres of the respiratory disease with over 4,000 positive cases, now had only 714 active cases.

The rest of the regions that had witnessed steep decline include Central-206, Ahafo-81, Bono-174, Eastern-115 and Western North-seven.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye explained that given the fact that only 299 cases are at treatment centres vis-à-vis the 700 beds available, the nation was not overwhelmed by the number of cases currently under treatment.

Meanwhile, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah cautioned the public not to use the improvement in the country's recovery rate to be reckless in observing the safety and preventive etiquettes.

"We're not out of the woods yet and so the improvement in the recovery data should not make us reckless in adhering to the preventive etiquettes," he added.