Former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service and presidential advisor on Health, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare says the Covid-19 cases in Ghana are not getting worse.
Dr Nsiah Asare said it is rather a positive step by the government through its enhanced contact tracing and testing exercise to make sure the virus did not spread further.
This was in response to a statement from Epidemiologist, Dr. John Amuasi of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology that the cases in Ghana will get worse before getting better.
Speaking as a panellist on a radio show monitored by primenewsghana.com. Dr Nsiah Asare said the cases in the country have increased because of the enhanced contact tracing.
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According to him, this is a positive sign because without testing we will not know the true state of the spread of the virus in the country.
He said since the lockdown over 37,000 samples of contacts have been taken and are being tested, and this will inform the next decision of the government.
Dr Nsiah also disclosed that the government will soon introduce the rapid testing system to complement the PCR currently being used for the testing.
Ghana's case count
Situation update, Covid-19 outbreak in Ghana as at 09 April 2020, 22:00 HRS
Over the past eleven (11) days, a number of measures have been introduced to control and prevent further spread of COVID-19 in Ghana. Among these include restrictive movement in the hotspots of the outbreak, enhanced surveillance including intensive contact tracing and laboratory testing. These measures have resulted in a sudden increase in case detection, with high number of cases being reported.
As of 09 April 2020, 22:00 HRS, a total of 37,405 samples (from routine and enhanced surveillance) have been collected. Out of these, 14,611 have been tested with 378 being positive for COVID-19. The breakdown of the 378 positive cases are as follows: four (4) have been treated, discharged and have tested negative, 366 cases have been categorised as mild to moderate disease on treatment, two (2) cases are currently on ventilators and six (6) have died.
Of the 378 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 192 were reported from the routine surveillance, 71 from enhanced surveillance activities and 115 from travellers under mandatory quarantine in both Accra and Tamale.
Regions that have reported cases are Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central, Eastern, Northern, North East, Upper East and Upper West regions.