Frontiers Health Services alarmed over ‘unprecedented’ rise in COVID cases at KIA

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Frontiers Health Services, managers of Ghana’s COVID-19 airport testing programme have issued an alert over a seeming rise in the number positive COVID-19 cases coming into the country.

The company in a letter to the Managing Director of Ghana Airports Company Limited, Yaw Kwakwa said it recorded the highest daily number of positive COVID-19 cases at the airport on Saturday, April 24, 2021.

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Prior to that, the highest number was on Wednesday April 21, 2021.

“Today 24th April, 2021, we recorded seventy-five (75) positive cases. This exceeds the previous highest rate of forty-five (45) positive cases on the 21st of April, 2021,” it said in the letter.

According to the company, the rate of positive cases being recorded at the airport in recent times is “unprecedented.”

Based on the Ghana Health Service’s COVID-19 update of 20 April 2021, out of 231,911 COVID-19 tests done at the Kotoka International Airport, 1,452 cases were positive.

The positivity rate thus is 0.6.

But according to Frontiers Health Services the recent development is not the best.

The company is therefore advising the Ghana Airports Company Limited to introduce stringent measures that will help address the situation.

“We once again appeal to all stakeholders to implement stringent measures on the quality of PCR results acceptable for entry into the republic of Ghana. It has become imperative to implement new guidelines to curtail the influx of positive cases into the country,” FHS said in its letter.

Currently, all passengers arriving in the country are to have in their possession a negative COVID‑19 PCR test result in English from an accredited laboratory in their country of origin.

The test are to be done not more than 72 hours before the scheduled departure from the country of origin.

At the airport, passengers are subjected to a mandatory COVID‑19 PCR test at a cost of between $50 and $150 for Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian passengers respectively.

Passengers who test positive for COVID‑19 are made to undergo mandatory isolation and treatment at a designated health facility or isolation centre, at a cost to passengers, except for Ghanaian citizens.

COVID-19 case count

Based on the last update of April 20, 2021, Ghana has cumulatively recorded 92,037 positive COVID-19 cases with 777 deaths.

The number of people who have recovered are 89,841, leaving active cases at 1,419.

The country has so far administered 842,521 vaccines.

Source: citinewsroom.com