Intensify adherence to coronavirus safety protocols – Dr Aboagye

Dr Da Costa Aboagye, the Director of Health Promotion of the Ghana Health Service, on Sunday called on Ghanaians to strictly adhere to the COVID-19 safety protocols to help overcome the virus.

He noted that the country's COVID-19 recovery rate of about 85 per cent was encouraging and said if citizens followed the safety protocols, the infection rate would continue to fall.

“Four months after recording our first case, though the cumulative case count has exceeded 27,000 we have defied alarming predictions of overwhelming infection rates and deaths,” Dr. Aboagye told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra.

The Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service, together with all health care workers, he said, were managing the recorded cases well thereby contributing to the high recovery and low mortality rates compared with other countries.

“With the current ease of restrictions, Ghana’s active case count has seen a sustained decrease trend amidst a few spikes,” Dr Aboagye said.

“From around 7,000 active cases in June to 5,000 plus cases in early July and currently about 3,500 cases. Though this pandemic is caused by a novel virus and is full of uncertainties, the current trend is a good sign of reduced infection rate at a time when some activities are allowed.

Dr Aboagye, who is also the leader of the Risk Communication for the National COVID-19 Response Team, said Ghanaians must continue to adhere to the safety protocols in the midst of sustained health education and promotion.

He asked the public not to be discouraged by the increasing cumulative case count as it included a large proportion of recoveries and did not tell the true picture of the nation’s current state.

“The focus should be on the active cases which stand at 3,871 since this represents the current number of positive cases we are managing in our hospitals and isolation centers,” he added.

The Ghana Health Service explains that part of the 488 new cases recorded on July 19, 2020 was from samples taken between the periods of June 13 to July 13, 2020 but reported from the laboratory on July 14.