'There’s no reason' to say Ghana’s coronavirus cases has peaked – epidemiologist

A clinical epidemiologist, Professor Fred Binka has questioned claims by the Ghana Health Service that Ghana has reached its peak of the of the deadly coronavirus infections.

Even before the country’s case count could reach 3,000, the Director of Public Health, Dr Ebenezer Badu Sakordie on Tuesday announced the rate of infections per data available shows the case count peaked on April 25.

According to him, the number of cases that were recorded after that date declined until May 6

“We peaked around the 25 of April and since then the numbers have continued to come down until May 6,” he explained subsequently on Thursday.

“So that is showing that of the positivity, since peaking on April 2, we have consistently recorded a decline until today, May 7,” Dr Badu Sarkodie said.

But commenting on the issue on The Key Points on TV3 Saturday morning, Prof. Binka argued there is no justification whatsoever for the Ghana Health Service to be talking about the country’s cases peaking at a time that authorities are struggling to test everyone.

“There is no reason to go to talk about peak at this time because we are talking about the peak of Ghana [yet] we haven’t covered Ghana, we are still struggling to cover Ghana,” the former Dean of School of Public Health at the University of Ghana stated.

He observed adequate measures have not been put in place to screen people from the entire country who are at risk of the virus

He wondered whether the three regions which have so far not recorded any case of covid-19, is as a result of non-testing in those areas.

“In greater Accra,” he said, “there are many places that have not reported any of these cases and my position is that you have not tested”

Prof. Binka added: “If you don’t test you don’t find it.

For him, the entire population is tested, one cannot make the case that Ghana’s infection rate has peaked on the curve, saying “until you have covered the country, you cannot be saying that the country has reached its peak, no”.



Head of Disease Surveillance at the Ghana Health Service, Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, speaking on the show explained the ‘peaking’ as was said earlier meant that was the highest spike to have recorded in the country at the time.

Meanwhile, he has said the over 900 cases announced Friday are not new ones and that they some were from April 26.

“Just before I came I looked at the data we’ve collected; it is still not real time. What I’m saying is that like yesterday, we got about 900 cases, that 900 cases are not new cases…It’s a mixture of old and new cases,” he stated