Dr. Duah Dwomoh, a Biostatistician and a lecturer at the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Ghana has slammed the government for its new guidelines for discharging persons infected with COVID-19.
He described the new protocols as “terrible” and could lead the country “into a serious situation”.
Speaking on Eyewitness News with Umaru Sanda Amadu, he explained that due to the dynamics of COVID-19, persons infected might not show symptoms but transmit the virus which makes it deadly.
He said the perception of asymptomatic persons not transmitting the virus is “wrong”.
In defence of this claim, he categorised the situations into two dynamics.
“The first one is that people are asymptomatic and are in the position to also transmit COVID-19 and that makes COVID-19 the decision a bit dangerous.”
“[Secondly] we have those who are exposed but are not in the position to transmit the infection until they become infectious within the population sector. So if you reintroduce this person into the same population, this means that the person can still transmit the infection.”
Reiterating the essence of contact tracing, Dr. Dwomoh said this defies the logic of contact tracing since it focuses on people who have been exposed so that they do not become infectious to others.
GHS releases new guidelines for discharging persons infected with COVID-19
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Aboagye, in a press briefing today [Thursday, 18th June 2020] explained that the review will affect patients who do not display symptoms of the virus and patients whose symptoms die down during treatment.
For patients who are asymptomatic, “14 days after the initial positive, we will discharge you without a test.”
For symptomatic patients “you will do 14 days after testing positive and if you are without symptoms you are discharged after three days without symptoms,” Dr Aboagye outlined.
The change in policy is in line with revised guidelines by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The initial WHO policy was a test based strategy.
