The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has confirmed that four new cases of COVID-19 have been recorded in the country.
The confirmation thus brings to six, the total number of persons who have been infected in the country with the virus over the last four days.
Addressing the media in Accra yesterday, the Director of Public Health at the GHS, Dr Badu Sarkodie said the four new cases were also imported cases as all of them had returned into the country from trips abroad.
He said the first of the four cases was recorded in the Ashanti Region and it involved a 56-year old Ghanaian who returned from the U.K on March 4.
Dr Sarkodie noted that even though the gentlemen went through all the laid down protocols at the airport, he did not show any sign of the illness until March 13 when he started showing symptoms and checked into a health facility where his blood sample was taken and sent to one of the designated testing centres.
He said “This man stayed in the UK for 10 days, he developed symptoms on March 12 and reported to a hospital in Obuasi and the case definition met that of suspected Covid-19, the sample was sent to Kumasi Collaborative Research Centre and it tested positive.”
Similarly, the second case involved a female student who also travelled into the country after spending 10 days in the USA and returned to the country on March 9.
He said even though she also went through the laid down protocols she didn’t show symptoms at the entry point, however, after some days, she fell ill and checked into a health facility where her samples were collected and sent for testing at Noguchi Memorial Research Institute where it tested positive.
Dr Sarkodie said on Saturday they received a report of two new confirmed cases from Noguchi involving a 42-year-old Ghanaian male who returned on March 8, after having travelled to Switzerland and U.K”.
In addition, a 41-year-old Ghanaian male’s case was detected at the Tema General Hospital on March 14 after showing signs and symptoms following his return from Germany.
Dr Sarkodie said all persons involved in the six cases had been isolated and were undergoing treatment, assuring that “All six, the first two cases and the current four are all in stable conditions.”
He noted that the case tracing had commenced and so far about 200 persons had been established to have come into contact with them and the necessary steps had been taken to quarantine them.
The director assured that the necessary protocols put in place to contain the situation were yielding the necessary response and called on the public to cooperate with the authorities to ensure the situation was kept under control.
He also appealed to the media to ensure that they do not create unnecessary fear and panic by cross-checking their information from official sources.
By Cliff Ekuful
