Ghana marks a year since recording first COVID-19 case

A year ago Ghana confirmed its first cases of COVID-19 infection.

The first two cases of the coronavirus in Ghana were confirmed after detection in two infected people who came to Ghana from Norway and from Turkey.

The government subsequently banned all public gatherings to reduce the spread of the virus. Basic schools, senior high schools and universities, both public and private, were also closed.

On March 22, Ghana’s borders were closed after initial restrictions on travellers from countries with over 200 positive coronavirus cases.

On the same day, the Ghana Health Service reported the first death from the virus.

On March 30, 2020, the government initiated a partial lockdown of Accra, Kasoa, Tema and Kumasi which lasted for three weeks.

In the course of the management of the virus, the state offered subsidies on utilities and free food for vulnerable Ghanaians.

The estimated cost of the pandemic on Ghana’s economy at some GHS9.5 billion cedis.

Among many interventions government committees to increase health infrastructure to fight the pandemic.

Currently, Ghana has recorded 86,737 with 4,782 active cases.

Eighty-one thousand, two hundred and ninety-nine (81,299) persons have either recovered or been discharged.

The country has also recorded 656 deaths.

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has been outlining some measures adopted at the time to battle the pandemic.

“Ghana’s strategy was first to get a local understanding of the kind of beast we were fighting. That is why the President, right from the beginning, got together local experts to get a clear understanding of what it is we were fighting.”

“The second part of the strategy was to ensure that the people were armed with a lot of information to ensure they don’t catch the virus or even if they get catch the virus know where to get medical care.”

“The third pillar was not to go on the medical route which was to trace, to test and to treat all persons who were thought of as being at risk.”

“That is why we were one of the very first countries to put in place a very robust testing regime whether it is at the airport or even our enhance surveillance we rolled out during the precautionary locked down we went about,” Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said.

Ghana is currently engaged in a roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Ghana was the first recipient of COVID-19 vaccine doses distributed by COVAX, a global vaccine sharing initiative.

Ghana took delivery of 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India on February 24.

This was followed by a donation of 50,000 vaccines from the Indian government.

The government expects to take delivery of 2 million AstraZeneca vaccines by the end of May also from the COVAX facility.