No student has COVID-19 in Volta Region – Regional Health Directorate

The Volta Regional Health Directorate has refuted media reports that some Senior High Schools in the region have recorded cases of COVID-19.

Reports on Wednesday, June 24, suggested that some schools in the Volta Region had recorded COVID-19 cases within the few days which the final years have returned to school to prepare for their exit examinations.

However, the Deputy Regional Director of Health in charge of Public Health, Dr. Senanu Kwasi Dzokoto in a Citi News interview said these claims are false.

“We have not recorded any COVID-19 case in any secondary institution in the Volta Region. The emphasis is not the fact that we have not recorded any case, the emphasis, for us as a health service working together with the education service is to ensure that every point in time, we are equal to the task so that should it even happen that a student will show up with COVID-19-like symptoms, we are ready to isolate and properly manage all those cases so that all our students are safe.”

“They are also part of the community and since there is a pandemic going on, our first option is to make sure that we protect every student so that nobody gets it. But in an unfortunate event there is even a case, we can still assure the parents that their wards are still very safe under all circumstances,” he stated.

Reopening of schools

Three days after Ghana recorded its first two cases of the novel coronavirus, President Akufo-Addo on March 15, 2020, directed the closure of schools at all levels to curb the spread of the virus.

But after almost 10 weeks of closure, final year Senior High Schools (SHS) students were asked by the President, Nana Akufo-Addo to return to school on Monday, June 22, whereas their counterparts in Junior High Schools (JHS) are to go back to school on Monday, June 29, to prepare for their final examinations.

Final year university students were also asked to resume on Monday, June 15.

All of these formed part of the phased easing of COVID-19 induced restrictions by the President.

Staff of Accra Technical University tests positive

Unfortunately, just a week after final year students in tertiary institutions returned to school, a National Service person at the Academic Department of the Accra Technical University tested positive for the disease.

The case is said to have been recorded on Monday, June 22, 2020; exactly a week after the tertiary institutions reopened.

Management of the university has disclosed that the NSS person reported to a medical facility in her neighbourhood after experiencing symptoms of fever, headache and runny nose by which COVID-19 tests conducted.

The affected person is currently in isolation responding to treatment at the same medical facility.

According to the school authorities, six other colleagues of the infected person have been counselled with their samples taken for testing.