Ghana's coronavirus cases hit 1,042

Ghana’s count of the Coronavirus has increased to 1,042.

This was announced by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during his seventh address to the nation on the outbreak today, Sunday, April 19, 2020.

He said, "The overwhelming majority of these contacts have been established from the last three weeks of the partial lockdown in Accra and Kumasi. Out of this number, 1,042 persons i.e. 1.5 per cent have been confirmed as positive, with 67,549 i.e. 98.5 per cent testing negative. 99 persons have recovered, and have been discharged and 930 persons who have been isolated are responding to treatments either in their homes or in treatment facilities."

He added that, these 930 persons after their treatments, will undergo the mandatory two tests to determine if they have also recovered from the virus or otherwise.

Akufo-Addo explained that, since the first two cases of COVID-19 was recorded in Ghana, about 86,000 contacts have been traced out of which about 68,591 tests have been completed. The results of a backlog of about 18,000 tests whose results are yet to be received.

He noted that the reason why the Coronavirus cases in Ghana has increased is because of "the decision we took aggressively to trace and test contacts of the infected persons. This is to enable us to identify and isolate infected persons, protect the population from further infections and contain better, the spread of the virus."

"Indeed, Ghana is the only African country to have conducted more than 60,000 tests and we are ranked number one in Africa in administering of tests per a million people," he observed.

Watch the President's full address below.