Ghana tops Africa and 3rd in the world on coronavirus response - Pius Hadzide

Deputy Minister of Information, Pius Enam Hadzide, has said that a report released by the reputable and leading financial media group in Asia, Yicai Media group on COVID-19 epidemic prevention measures, economic recovery, and international cooperation has put Ghana as the best responsive country in Africa and the third in the world coming only after China and Sri Lanka.

According to the Deputy Minister Ghana’s effective governance that responded quickly and which also mobilized public support has been the effective strategy that dealt with the pandemic in Ghana.

“The President himself chaired the daily Inter-Ministerial Task Force meetings every evening and made sure that he was on top of the issues. He allowed the science and the data to guide policy formulation rather than the political and sometimes sentimental outbursts we heard from his critics,” Pius Hadzide said.

Pius Hadzide indicated that Ghana’s response strategy was anchored on five main pillars namely; limit the importation of cases, contain community spread, provide adequate care for infected persons, limit the impact on the socio-economic life of Ghanaians and deepen the country’s self-reliance and increase our production capacity and undergirded the steps taken to enhance screening at our points of entry, mandatory quarantine, the closure of borders, aggressive contact tracing and testing, closure of some public places and the imposition of restrictions including a lockdown amongst others.

The government exhibited great social responsiveness and responsibility through the provision of free water, free electricity, free food, special package for frontline health workers, widespread distribution of PPEs, and a business support program for businesses worst affected by the pandemic.

The Deputy Minister expressed confidence that based on his performance in the fight against COVID-19, President Akufo-Addo has once again proven himself as a competent and compassionate leader and that Ghanaians would retain him to see the nation through COVID-19 and warned against any attempts to gamble with our public health by attempting to change during the elections.

Ghana obtained an overall score of 58,8 against 59.2 and 68.1 of Sri Lanka and China respectively. South African is ranked 108th with an overall score of 18.2