The Deputy Minister of Health and Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ledzokuku Constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Dr. Bernard Oko-Boye has intimated that the provision surrounding the supply of face masks to travelers coming into Ghana when they arrive at the airport, has been reviewed.
This comes on the back of grievances levelled against government by passengers who arrived into the country, that there is no provision of face masks as promised by the President, H.E Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his State of the Nation’s Address.
According to Dr. Oko-Boye, the science behind providing face masks at the airport was to prevent the spread of microorganisms and contamination through the old masks passengers wore.
“Wherever you brought the mask from, it picks certain micros or it is contaminated. We let you drop it so that, we give you a new one. But we realized that, the discarding process and trying to get all the hundreds; sometimes thousands of masks out was rather going to, if you are not careful, contaminate the place. You will have to get people to come for them, they will now be coming across staff from the airport even before they get tested. So, then we reviewed that particular position. So, it is not about non-availability it was rather, an infection prevention measure. Because in infection prevention, you will want to avoid contacts as much as possible.”
Speaking on lockdown, the Ledzokuku MP hinted that he was taken aback by the alert issued by IMANI Africa on the Frontiers Healthcare Services. He said it was a matter of urgency for antigen tests to be carried out on passengers who had arrived into the country and so, if it had delayed by regularizing and certifying the services of the Frontier Healthcare, there would have been an increase in COVID cases.
According to him, Health Facilities Regulatory Agency of Ghana (HEFRA) and the Allied Health Professions Council are taking steps to regulate the practice of antigen rapid testing in Ghana by the Frontier Healthcare Services.
“No country allowed their service providers to go through their traditional steps; if they take 3 months to let say, get HEFRA and you take let’s say, 4 months to get Allied council to certify you, by the time you are done, then our airport would have been closed.
“FDA had to deal with this solution provider before putting their solutions at the airport. Those are ones that, even no matter how urgent the situation is, must be done. So, we subjected ourselves to that. The rest are procedural; they are things that you do to validate or to legalize the setup. If you look at Act 663, even the procurement law, if you look at the conditions for single sourcing, it cites situations like this. When you are in an urgent situation where something must be dealt with, you are allowed to go ahead and deal with it and then take steps to make sure it is legalized later”.
Questioned on how political aspirants who are vying for various seats are going about their campaign in the COVID era, the Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, iterated that face masks are a necessity when going about campaigns. Stating that he shares nose masks as people get into contact with him, though most of them do not comply to the protocols because of the spontaneous excitement on seeing their political figures.
The former media personality iterated that the President is meticulous in dealing with averting coronavirus in the country. Therefore, the President interrogates how the pandemic can be controlled in certain ministries and sectors before acceding to opening these sectors. This, he said, is the reason why some of the industries and sectors have not been given rights to opening.
According to him, the member of the Scientific Technical Advisory Committee of the Special Programme on Tropical Disease Research, Dr. Asamoah Baah and the Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Nsiah Asare, are amongst the team of advisors of H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in making critical decisions concerning coronavirus.
