A leading Australian think tank, Lowy Institute has ranked Ghana’s COVID-19 response as the 41st best in the world out of 98 countries assessed.
The study, published on Thursday was carried out looking at six criteria, including the number of confirmed cases, number of COVID-19 deaths, and testing metrics.
“Collectively, these indicators point to how well or poorly countries have managed the pandemic in the 36 weeks that followed their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19,” Lowy Institute says.
Fourteen-day rolling averages of new daily figures were calculated for confirmed cases, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths, confirmed deaths per million people, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests, and tests per thousand people to arrive at the ranking, Lowy Institute adds.
The survey was done using data available to January 9, 2021.
Ghana’s introduced measures to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak since the country’s first two cases in March 2020 had been widely celebrated across the world however experts from August began raising concerns over the declining number of tests conducted and what they believed to be premature easing of some of the stringent restrictions introduced between March and April 2020.
Per the study, New Zealand comes top as the country with the best response to the pandemic followed by Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand and Cyprus.
The bottom five in the country ranking were United States, Iran, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.
On the African continent, Rwanda was ranked the most effective in managing COVID-19 followed by Togo, Tunisia and Mozambique.
The worst management of COVID-19 in Africa is seen in South Africa which sits below Nigeria, Namibia, Morocco and Libya according to the survey.
Ghana has consistently for more than a week recorded an average of over 600 confirmed cases daily.
Medical officers say the country’s treatment and isolation centers are getting full, with serious strain on the few health workers to provide critical care for the growing numbers.