Dr Aboagye Dacosta explains why Ghana’s infection rate is reducing rapidly

Director of Health Promotion, Ghana Health Service, Dr Aboagye Dacosta has attributed the declining rate of the coronavirus infection in the country to the swift measures put in place by the government and Ghana Health Service.

According to him, the government and the Ghana Health Service have done well when it comes to commitment and seriousness in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic as some countries are learning from the way the health experts in the country are fighting the virus.

Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, the Chairman of Risk Communication and Social Mobilization Committee for Ghana’s Covid-19 Response Team believes the end will justify their performance in the fight against the Covid-19 as they don’t want to be seen as though they are blowing their own trumpet.

“We have been careful in our decision in fighting this Covid-19. Every measures we have put in place, we go a step further than the ones recommended to us. Typical example is when our borders were closed, only few countries had done that at that time”.

“We closed the borders and those who came were put under mandatory quarantine and we tested all of them and those who tested positive were given treatment. Government paid for all their accommodation, feeding and treatment”.

Looking at the country’s discharge policy, Dr Aboagye said that the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has adopted the policy of adding 3 more days to the stipulated days after someone shows no sign of the virus.

“When it comes to testing, it got to a point where in Ghana, WHO recommended that we use two-double tests but we decided to comply with the two-double test and we were one of the few countries in the world to do the two-double negative test before declaring someone as free of the virus, but many countries were doing one or nothing,” he stated.

“When you look at our social distancing and the use of the nose masks, in fact, the countries with the system to enhance the social distancing, they don’t use nose masks but those of us struggling due to cultural settings and structural settings to adhere fully to the social distancing, we decided to practice social distancing of one meter away from each other and use the nose masks to protect ourselves”.

He stressed that the method adopted by the government with the help of the Ghana Health Service to manage the Covid-19 is different from the way other countries are managing theirs; thus, the country’s 3Ts, namely tracing, testing and treatment helped in identifying many people with the virus and the subsequent high recovery rate.

“The reason why we have done more tests than most African countries, we call it early detection method which is used to detect those who have the virus from the population who don’t have the virus. It has been very infective and as we speak, we have done test for over 300,000 if you take 11,000 per million population. This tells you that the measures put in place by Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Health and the government have helped reduced the infection rate we see now,” he explained.