Senior presidential advisor on health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, has stated categorically that the government will not conduct mass Covid-19 testing of citizens.
Elements of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), including their Members of Parliament (MPs), have chastised the government for not rolling out concrete mass Covid-19 testing programme even though the recorded cases are increasing.
The ranking member on the Health Committee and NDC MP for Juaboso, Kwabena Mintah Akando, indicated that lack of mass testing underscores the fact that government has misplaced priorities.
But Dr. Asare insisted that mass testing is not the best way to go since it is not cost effective and that the nation does not have the resources to conduct mass testing of citizens every two weeks.
“As a country, we are not doing mass testing. If you do mass testing today will you do mass testing again in two weeks’ time or every two days? Because when you test today and it is negative you can be positive in four days’ time,” he said.
“We can’t continuously do mass testing every day since it is not cost effective or a cost benefit to the country. We contact-trace and test and that it is not mass testing that will solve this problem,” he noted.
Dr. Asare told Parliament that Ghana started doing enhanced contact tracing and testing even before some other countries started.
“As a country, we are also looking at the resources we have available, and if you want to do mass testing it means almost everywhere in the country we have to send VCRs and let people queue to be tested,” he pointed out.
He added that what is important is adhering to the preventive protocols, which he said is more beneficial than mass testing.
Given Ghana’s Covid-19 situation, the presidential advisor said as of midnight on Wednesday, 283,124 persons had been tested out of which 15,473 turned positive.
“We have 11,431 people who have recovered – a person who is not likely to infect anybody, 24 people with severe conditions and six in critical condition,” Dr. Asare stated and disclosed that the country has 95 validated deaths.
“What it means is that we have 3,947 people still at home, isolation centres or in hospitals,” he added.
Source: Daily Guide
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
Mr. Presidential Advisor on health, Dr. Anthony Asare, please be aware that the whole world is concerned and scared about Ghanas COVID 19 rocketing at a higher speed without any sign of slowing down. Its worrying and one cannot just brush aside the consequences yet to be realised. Looking at our poor health system and structures in the urban and rural areas and the COVID 19 spreading at a high speed, it can easily explode, at any time, it will get out of hand as it has happened in Bolivia and Brazil. Our health capacities is not strong enough to absorb the yet to come explosion of the COVID 19 in ghana.The virus is spreading at an alarming rate as it has happened else where. It was surprise to many ghanaians that you never mentioned or commented or condemned about the COVID 19 regulations which was disregarded by the NPP Primaries at the weekend. Ghana is at the moment not been hailed across the Globe of how the pandemic is been managed by the President and its COVID 19 Team and if the President of the Republic and the COVID 19 Team cannot even condem the just ended NPP primaries. The just ended NPP primaries is one of the root causes of the escalation of the virus in Ghana. The representative of the WHO in Ghana has also kept mute to the rising and spreading of the virus in Ghana. The health of ghanaians is a major priority and not politics. So, becuase of the political ambitions of individuals, should the whole country suffer and been scared with the sky rocketing of the COVID 19 in Ghana. Let us not pretend that all is going on well in Ghana.Simply put, the situation is getting worse. We are sitting on time bomb and the virus is heading for explosion in Ghana as it has happened to some countries.