KUMACA deaths: Sue government for negligence – Muntaka to parents

The Minority Chief Whip in Parliament Muntaka Mubarak has urged families of the four students who died at the Kumasi Academy following the outbreak of Influenza H1N1 to sue government for negligence.

According to him, the government’s handling of the scourge at the Academy since its outbreak had been woeful.

The respiratory illness which the Minister of Health Kwaku Agyemang-Manu confirmed at a news conference on December 7, 2017 to be Influenza H1N1 2009 has killed four students from the school since the beginning of this month.

Also 44 students have been infected by the deadly strain and are being treated, Agyemang-Manu told the December 7 news conference.

Calling on the parents to take legal action against the government, Mubarak who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asawase told Starr News’ Parliamentary Correspondent Ibrahim Alhassan in an exclusive interview that “we are not safe.”

“That’s the way to go. We need to hold people responsible for their action…if anybody is going to [sue] I will be happy to support,” he stated.

He said since the confirmation of the outbreak as Influenza H1N1 2009, the students are yet to be vaccinated.

Responding to the government’s claims that the situation had been contained, he said “it’s just shocking, just read, you don’t deal with swine flu with antibiotics. You take the antibiotics to give you time so that at least it subsides the rate of infection so that you try to deal with it.

“Now you are relying on the antibiotics as a solution to the Swine flu when we all know that anytime there is a swine flu the quick thing to do is to vaccinate…so that those who do not have the disease they will be prevented from getting it and those who have already had then you manage them.”