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More than 6,000 individuals who came into contact with coronavirus patients in Accra and Kumasi have been traced.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) said on Friday morning that samples of these persons have been taken for testing.
“As at yesterday, over 6,000 samples had been taking for testing. So testing is currently ongoing all over the country,” said Dr. Patrick Aboagye, the Director-General of GHS.
These contacts were traced by a team of about 300 people. He also disclosed that 538 people who were also under mandatory quarantine had been tested.
“We are hoping that within the next day… all the tests would have been done and the results will be shared with all the people in the hotel and the preparation for the discharge will be done based on the results that we have.”
Ghana has so far recorded five deaths from 205 known cases of the novel coronavirus.
All five deceased persons had underlying chronic medical conditions.
Currently, the number of regions reporting cases are as follows: Greater Accra, Ashanti, Northern, Upper West Eastern and Upper East Region. The Greater Accra Region has most cases (183) followed by the Northern Region (10), Ashanti Region (9), Upper West Region (1), Eastern Region (1) and Upper East Region (1).
Most of the cases are reported from routine enhanced surveillance activities. The cases from travellers under mandatory quarantine remain 89. The government is currently engaged in what it calls enhanced contact tracing.
In line with this, the Government has also begun processes to expand the number of testing facilities for the virus across the country. The move is meant to facilitate speedy testing of contacts that have been traced so far.
Though the government has stepped up its contact tracing efforts to identify possible cases of the novel coronavirus, the Noguchi Medical Research Institute and the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research remain the only testing centres.
Source: Daily Mail GH with additional files from CNR
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