President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says he is satisfied with the country’s response to the COVID-19 corona virus disease, after touring health facilities at the Kotoka International Airport, Tema General Hospital and the Greater Accra Regional Hospital yesterday afternoon.
Although 18 suspected cases have so far been tested at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Accra with no confirmed case as at yesterday, the President told reporters that he was satisfied with how health workers were dealing with the problem.
President Akufo-Addo was accompanied by the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, the Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kumah-Aboagye, among other officials from the Health Ministry and the presidency.
The deadly corona virus broke out in China in December last year and has since been declared a global health threat by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
So far, more than 90,000 cases have been recorded worldwide, with more than 3,000 deaths.
At the Terminal 3 Arrival Hall of the Kotoka International Airport, the President and his team observed how health workers screened travellers on arrival.
Travellers are made to fill out a form to ascertain whether they experience any of the symptoms of the disease, including fever, cough, headache, sore throat, sneezing, runny nose and bodily weakness.
The health workers then take the temperature of every traveller before the traveller enters the main arrival hall to go through arrival formalities.
Patients with symptoms of the virus are quarantined at the Airport before transported in an ambulance to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital at Ridge.
At the hospital, the patients are held at the Infectious Disease Isolation Centre constructed five years ago during the outbreak of Ebola in Africa, before their samples are taken to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research to test for coronavirus.
President Akufo-Addo and his team, from the airport, went to the Tema General Hospital and the Greater Accra Regional Hospital to inspect where suspected patients are quarantined pending results of their samples from the Noguchi Memorial Institute.
The President said he was satisfied with the country’s preparedness towards detecting the disease and preventing it from spreading, adding, “We will just have to keep our fingers crossed.”
BY YAW KYEI
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