Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye has revealed that, the recent COVID-19 case surge is as a result of non-adherence to various safety measures put across in mitigating the spread of the virus.
Speaking with the media, he brought to the public attention that, a recent survey conducted by the GHS showed that, six major markets across the Greater Accra Region had over 90 percent of people not wearing nose masks.
“The cases early increased in October because the wearing of the masks reduced in terms of all the protocols. Workplace issues were challenging, so we had to intervene to ensure that things are done. We did a survey last week and it was just a marginal increase because 82 percent of people are still not wearing the masks. Seven percent are wearing and 11 percent are not wearing the masks accurately. So that is a far cry from the 42 percent that we had a couple of months ago.”
He also noted that, another survey is being conducted to look at workplace arrangement because most of the outbreak of the virus has come from workplaces.
Highlighting on measures which had been taken so far with regards to the fight against rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, Dr. Kuma-Aboagye revealed that there had been a lot of interventions since the inception adding that, his outfit has currently deployed about 25 vehicles to assist in contact tracing, 15 of them which are in Greater Accra and the rest which have been sent to the other regions to enhance their activities.
“We have also started an assessment of the infirmaries of school health systems in anticipation of the reopening of schools in January. We are also conducting a lab-quality assurance exercise to ensure that standards are maintained for accurate results.”
The GHS survey indicated that there was a surge in COVID-19 active cases in October as more people flouted safety protocols and also revealed that, the proportion of people who do not wear masks has increased from 18 percent to 82 percent in the Greater Accra Region.
According to the survey, head porters who were doing well a few months ago now have 96 percent of them not adhering to the mandatory wearing of masks directive.
However, buyers have improved their compliance as compared to the previous survey although 66 percent of them are not wearing masks.
Also, recent updates from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) indicate that, the country’s COVID-19 case count stands at 51,184 with the active cases at 832 and the death toll also stands at 323.
Some months ago, the Health Ministry and the Ghana Health service cautioned Ghanaians to adhere to safety protocols in helping with the fight against COVID-19, placing more emphasis on the adherence to wearing of face masks.
The President also in his 17th address to the nation to provide updates on measures taken against the virus, also pleaded with citizens to adhere to safety as there as a spike in new cases.
