Major health stories in 2020

In February 2020, a new strain of bacteria - Neisseria meningitides serotype X was reported in the Upper West Region, with the hope that it will be contained in days.

But by April 15, 2020, the virus had spread to all the five regions of the north, with 409 infections resulting in 40 deaths.

COVID-19

On Thursday 12 March 2020, the country recorded its first case of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyemang Manu, announced at a press conference that two “imported” cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Ghana, after laboratory tests from the Noguchi Memorial Institute of Medical Research.

The two cases said to be travellers from Norway and Turkey were the first cases of the COVID-19 to test positive in Ghana after about 57 suspected cases proved negative.

Consequently, Ghana closed all its borders by land, sea and air to human traffic from midnight on Sunday, March 22 to curb the importation and spread of the virus; contain its spread; provide adequate care for the sick; limit the impact of the virus on the social and economic life of the citizens.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in a national address on Friday, March 27, 2020, imposed a two-week partial lockdown on Greater Accra and Kumasi, Kasoa and Tema. The lockdown took effect from 0010 hours on Monday, 30th March.

The cities were identified as the epicentres of the novel coronavirus in Ghana and were shut down as part of efforts to curb the spread of the disease.

The partial lockdown was expected to give the government an opportunity to halt the spread of the virus, scale-up contact tracing of persons who had come into contact with infected persons, test them for the virus, quarantine and isolate infected persons for treatment.

MALARIA

In April 2020, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) announced that Ghana had recorded a total of 54 malaria deaths between January and March 2020, and called on the public to sleep in Insecticide Treated Nets (INTs).

COVID-19 VACCINE

On December 20, 2020, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his Covid-19 update to the nation said the government had constituted a team of experts to make Ghana a recipient of ongoing deployments of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Ghana Health Service stated that the country would be in a position to take delivery of the vaccines by the end of the first quarter of 2021.