Director for Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Professor Abraham Kwabena Anang, has disclosed that the country still has the opportunity to avert community spread of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.

According to him, the variant was detected at the Kotoka International Airport and hasn’t made its way to communities yet.

His comments follow the detection of the Delta variant, an India strain, of the COVID-19 virus at the nation’s airport.

“The Indian strain has reached Ghana but there is a certain history that’s important. We had the UK strain, we had the South African strain… With the Delta variant, what we have seen is Delta variant in people, in travellers in Ghana and not the population. As such, we still have a chance to be able to contain [and] to prevent widespread distribution of the virus”.

Mr Anang further explained that, the solution to curbing the spread is “not by exclusion or targeting groups”.

Strengthen the public health

Additionally, he urged government to penalize individuals found culpable of not observing the protocol.

“…it is by strategic inclusion and taking decisions that are either intelligence based or evidence based that can provide solutions to the challenges.

“So, really, excluding some people or stopping some people from Ghana is not the solution. Rather, strengthening our public health and early detection, resilience for the pandemic is the key. Fortunately, that is the direction Ghana has taken so far. So, if we continue in that direction and we also appreciate the fact we made concerning the responsibility of the populations, then surely we will be able to manage the situation or contain the Delta variant. So, the population must be made aware that they are part of the solution”.

Delta variant recorded at KIA

Earlier, Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Asiedu Bekoe, expressed confidence in the Ghana Health Service in helping to curb the spread of the new strain.

Dr Bekoe explained about 4-6 weeks ago, a surge in the number of persons infected with the Delta variant was recorded at KIA. These were passengers who flew into Ghana from India, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates.

Additionally, he noted that prior to the discovery of the variant, officials of the Health Service assumed the surge in cases at KIA were from infected persons having close contact with non-infected persons in the aeroplane.

“We try to follow them up and do the test. At that time, most of them tested negative, then, there was nothing like a Delta variant.

“So what we’re doing is that, when we get a case, we try to follow you up. I’m talking about the negative passengers. We try to identify you, and we try to take a sample from you. But those who are positive, those are the ones that they do the genome sequencing”.

Dr Bekoe further intimated that, the Sputnik V and AstraZeneca vaccines are, in a way, not as effective as Pfizer’s, in fighting the Indian variant of Covid-19.

The Indian variant, also known as the Delta variant, is one of the 45 variants which are currently in Ghana.

This variant has caused huge spikes in India and a serious increase in cases in the UK even though large sections of the population in those countries are vaccinated.