Global Health Expert, Dr John Amuasi has urged the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to carry out more testing for COVID-19 in Senior High Schools (SHSs) that have recorded cases of the virus.

The GHS earlier in the week said it has no intention of carrying out mass testing in schools.

However, Dr Amuasi believes government should test more people than just contacts of those who have tested positive. He also called for some schools to be shut down as some government agencies have been shut down.

However, the lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology indicated that, the difference between the schools and the closed government institutions is that, mass testing has not been carried in the schools, so, the extent of spread is not known. In that case, he wants government to set the limit of infections that will determine the closure of schools that have recorded infections.

“The fact that there have been an infection of two or three of four or even ten, does not automatically mean that you shut down everything that you are doing.”
Dr John Amuasi

Dr Amuasi pointed out that government must ask several questions to know the actual situation on the ground, so that they can make better decisions.

“It’s a function of, if you know what the population in that place {is}? What is the proportion of people who are infected? When did you get to know of this infection and therefore how many people could be infected?”
Dr John Amuasi

According to him, some inherent deficiencies in government’s approach makes it difficult for these questions to be answered adequately. But, in his thinking, regardless of these challenges government must find a quicker approach to deal with the outbreak.

“This virus has two things that make it very difficult for us to arrive at that decision but nonetheless we have to find a way of arriving at this decision a bit quicker than we are currently doing. One is the fact that we have delays in conducting the tests and also in receiving the results of the tests. There are numerous people who have wanted to do the test who cannot do the test any longer because now, the policy is you don’t get a test unless you are ill.
“There is also a number of people who have been in very close contact with people who have been infected, either because they live in the same home with them or share an office space with them, who on the normal circumstance when we were doing the house alert could have reached out to and have their samples taken. That is not happening any longer. So that is a delay in testing.”
Dr John Amuasi

He added that,

“Now if you are fortunate to get a test for one reason or the other, how quickly do you get your results? Which means that there is a delay at both the back end and the front. So at the time you get to know someone is positive, the probability of them being in contact with several other people is very very high.”

According to the latest figures by the GHS, Ghana has recorded 371 new infections. This pushes the country’s case count to 23,834. Also, 19,212 people have recovered, which translates that 4, 807 people in the country are battling with the virus. 6 persons have lost their lives. This adds to the already 129 deaths in the country.