Ghana driving Africa's Covid-19 case count higher - World Health Organisation

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed Ghana is one of the countries driving the increase in Covid-19 cases in Africa.

WHO says about 19,000 people are expected to die from the virus on the continent.

Speaking to Daniel Dadzie on Prime Morning Monday, WHO Technical Officer for Africa, Dr Mary Stephen said the continent needs to institute urgent measures to avert health crisis.

“We are seeing an increasing trend in Covid-19 cases. 10 countries are driving this outbreak with South Africa reporting the highest number of cases. Nigeria and Ghana are also part of these countries” she said.

As at Monday, July 6, 2020, Africa’s confirmed cases pegged at 476,967 with active cases of 238,319. 227,282 persons recovered whiles 11,366 succumbed to Covid-19.

Out of the infections, Ghana contributed 20,085 including 122 deaths.

Dr Stephen also called on African countries to ramp up their health systems in order to identify infected persons; isolate and treat them.

The Global Health Expert urged citizens to strictly adhere to the various precautionary measures as their respective countries take steps to fight the virus.

“We need to ramp up all the capacities for detection, testing, isolation, treatment and contact tracing including preventive measures by the communities”

Dr Mary Stephen dismissed claims that the high number of Covid-19 a country records is as a result of increased testing.

“The number of cases you will see depends on the kind of transmission pattern. If you have community transmission, you will pick quite a number of test. Even if you do not test, they will eventually be presented at the hospitals or as community deaths” Dr Stephen revealed.

This may be in contrast with government claims that Ghana’s spike in Covid-19 is due to enhanced contact tracing and testing.

But the WHO Technical Officer for Africa further said, “If you have a country That is reporting sporadic number of cases, no matter how much you will test, you will still not so many cases. So it actually depends on the kind of transmission in the country.”