Minority demands Health Minister to reappear before parliament amid covid-19 spike

The Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu is demanding the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu to appear before parliament and brief the House on recent happenings regarding the fight against covid-19 pandemic in Ghana.

He said it is imperative for the Health Minister to come to parliament to apprise the House on urgent matters relating to the prevention and containment of covid-19.

“I also understand that the Chinese government gave some assistance to the public. The minister for health will have to come to this House to apprise us, how he’s dealing with matters relating to that and its distribution, relative to the need for PPEs to support us,”

Ghana has as at 31 st March 2020, 15:00 hrs, recorded nine (9) new cases of COVID-19 from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research since the last update at 08:30hrs on 30th March 2020.

All nine (9) were reported from Accra, three (3) of them travelled to Ghana within the past 14 days from Germany, France and Hungary respectively, but for six (6) of them there is no history of travel outside.

The Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR) also reported on tests from 77 samples including samples from 41 asymptomatic contacts of a case from Tamale Teaching Hospital and all are NEGATIVE for COVID-19.

This brings up to a total of 161 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ghana, including five (5) deaths as of 31 st March 2020 at 15:00Hr.

Three (3) of the confirmed cases have fully recovered and reverted to negative status for COVID-19 after repeat test following recovery from symptoms.

As at 31st March 2020, an additional thirty-one (31) confirmed cases have significantly improved with no symptoms and have been discharged from admission for home care pending repetition of laboratory tests. This adds to the 18 that were earlier being managed from home and bring the number of cases on home care to forty-nine (49).

Processes for enhanced contact tracing and laboratory testing have been initiated. A total of 1,185 contacts have been identified and are being followed up.

All five (5) deaths had underlying chronic medical conditions prior to COVID-19 infection.