Ghana driving Africa’s Covid-19 case count higher – WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed Ghana is one of the countries driving the increase in Covid-19 cases in Africa.

WHO says about 190,000 people are expected to die from the virus on the continent.

Speaking to Daniel Dadzie on Prime Morning Monday, WHO Technical Officer for Africa, Dr Mary Stephen said the continent needs to institute urgent measures to avert health crisis.

“We are seeing an increasing trend in Covid-19 cases; 10 countries are driving this outbreak with South Africa reporting the highest number of cases. Nigeria and Ghana are also part of these countries,” she said.

As at Monday, July 6, 2020, Africa’s confirmed case count was 476,967 with active cases of 238,319. Some 227,282 persons have recovered while 11,366 have succumbed to Covid-19.

Out of the infections, Ghana contributed 20,085 including 122 deaths.

The WHO Technical Officer for Africa also called on African countries to ramp up their health systems in order to identify infected persons; isolate and treat them.

The Global Health Expert urged citizens to strictly adhere to the various precautionary measures as their respective countries take steps to fight the virus.

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“We need to ramp up all the capacities for detection, testing, isolation, treatment and contact tracing including preventive measures by the communities,” she said.

She dismissed claims that the high number of Covid-19 cases a country records is as a result of increased testing.

“The number of cases you will see depends on the kind of transmission pattern. If you have community transmission, you will pick quite a number of tests. Even if you do not test; they will eventually be presented at the hospitals or as community deaths,” she revealed.

This may be in contrast with the government’s claims that Ghana’s spike in Covid-19 is due to enhanced contact tracing and testing.

But the WHO Technical Officer for Africa further said: “If you have a country that is reporting sporadic number of cases, no matter how much you will test, there will still be so many cases. So it actually depends on the kind of transmission in the country.”