MPs, all to join in fight as coronavirus cases increase

As COVID-19 cases soar in Ghana, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, Presidential Adviser on Health, has called on Members of Parliament (MPs) and all Ghanaians to join hands with the government to defeat the pandemic.

“The fight is a struggle that all must join,” he said on Thursday in Accra.

Dr Nsiah Asare explained that most of these coronavirus patients who are positive are from contact tracing, implying a lot of local transmissions and a lot of community spread.

“This is a fight that all should join,” the medic emphasized, when he led a team of officials from the National COVID-19 Response Team to brief Parliament’s Committee of the Whole on the nature of the pandemic and measures being taken by government to tackle it.

Dr Nsiah Asare said that currently there are a lot of local transmissions, which means there is a lot of community spread.

The total number of recorded cases of the disease in Ghana stands at 15,473; 11,430 recoveries and 3,840 active cases, with a death toll of 95.

Dr Nsiah Asare called particularly on Members of Parliament (MPs) to join hands with government in the fight against the coronavirus disease, explaining that the representative of the people, they are the right persons to assist in the fight against COVID-19 in their constituencies.

Dr Nsiah Asare was accompanied to the House by Dr Anarfi Asamoah-Baah, Presidential Coordinator of the National COVID-19 Response Team and Dr Chris Pambo, the resident medical officer in Parliament.

He stated that there was no guarantee that people who test negative for the virus would in a few days not test positive if they should come into contact with an infected person.

Dr Nsiah Asare also advised the MPs who wear face-shield to the House, add facemasks when debating on the floor to prevent people from contacting the droplets of others.

“I always say that mask is a must, if you wash your hands with running water and soap and keep the social distancing you are most unlikely to contract the virus and also prevent your neighbour from getting the virus,” he added.

Dr Nsiah Asare further announced that Ghana has changed its discharge policy for COVID-19 patients, in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation of May 27, 2020.

The global health agency reported, after much work on the virus that when somebody is asymptomatic for 10 days, it is most unlikely that the person would be infectious.

In the first policy, Ghana adopted the 14-day mandatory treatment or isolation after which the person would do first and second tests before he is discharged.

He said after studying it and situating it to the Ghanaian context the country adopted the WHO recommendation of May 27, 2020.

“This is the reason why after two weeks of self-isolation of asymptomatic patients, they are declared recovered and discharged,” the Presidential Advisor on Health said.