Ghana Health Service defends Covid-19 figures 

The Ghana Health Service, GHS has reacted to allegations that it is 'massaging' Ghana’s COVID-19 death toll.

The service has described the allegations as unfair.

Pressure group Occupy Ghana in a statement on Monday, June 15, 2020, said the reported COVID-19 related deaths reported so far cannot be right.

OccupyGhana argued that though 38 deaths have been reported from the Ashanti Region alone, less than 20 of those deaths are included in the national count.

“There is cause to suspect that the death numbers are being massaged. The reported 54 deaths [as of June 15, 2020] cannot be right. For instance, even though 38 deaths have been reported from the Ashanti Region alone, less than 20 of those deaths are included in the national count,” OccupyGhana noted in a statement.

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But the Ghana Health Service in responding to the allegations said it is “unfair and an affront to our professional integrity.”

“The reporting on data including deaths and recoveries at the National level goes beyond just numbers and includes epidemiological and clinical states of the cases. It requires a bit more time to verify and validate. In that context, the Regional-level data will normally be higher than the National data at any given time.”

“Going by this norm, the region will first report through their Situational Report to Director-General and other partners. We must remember that the Regional Health Administration is part of the Ghana Health Service and as such if there is a grand scheme to massage the figures on deaths as is being alleged, the region will not report such figures through its situational report. This allegation of data massaging, in our opinion is very unfair and an affront to our professional integrity,” portions of the Ghana Health Service statement read.