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Dr Damien Punguyiri, the Upper West Regional Director of Health Services has described as worrying the manner in which the public are beginning to relax the practice of the recommended COVID-19 safety protocols.

“At the beginning, people were very compliant with the wearing of face masks, washing of hands with soap under running water, use of alcohol based hand sanitizers, and social distancing but now it is not more like that and it is something we should all worry about”, he said.

Dr Punguyiri expressed the worry whilst briefing the media on the COVID-19 and meningitis situation in the Upper West Region.

He said community spread was still ongoing and therefore relaxing the safety protocols was detrimental to efforts made to contain the virus.

The Regional Director of Health Services therefore appealed to religious leaders, traditional authorities, public and private institutions to observe all the recommendations announced by the President on social gathering as well as the safety protocols to limit the community spread.

Giving an update on COVID-19 in the region, Dr Punguyiri said the region had recorded 10 more cases bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 32, out of which 21 were fully recovered and discharged.

“The Ghana Health Service together with stakeholders in the region will continue to strengthen surveillance activities at all levels to early detect, isolate and treat all cases of the disease to prevent spread”, he said.

On meningitis, he said a total of 356 suspected cases were reported with 48 related deaths, noting however that over the past seven weeks, no district had reached an epidemic threshold.

“Only few districts continue to report sporadic cases weekly”, he said whilst urging persons with symptoms of meningitis to report early to the nearest health facility as there were enough medicines for treatment of the disease.