Ghana’s strategy in fighting Covid-19 ahead of many countries’ – Oppong Nkrumah touts

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, wants Ghanaians to have confidence in the numerous strategies the government has introduced to contain the coronavirus in Ghana.

According to him, many of the measures that have been announced by President Nana Akufo-Addo and his officials are ahead of those in other countries.

“I think we should begin to notice that a lot of the things Ghana is doing, the world is now catching up,” he said Sunday on Beyond the Lockdown a discussion programme on Joy News that looks at national anti-coronavirus measures post a three-week lockdown in some parts of the country.

Citing events in the United Kingdom, for instance, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the European country was now talking about a mandatory quarantine of persons who are coming into the country.

The government of Ghana in March directed the Immigration Service and other state agencies to hold people arriving in the country for 14 days for testing and contact tracing.

Some 500 persons were placed under mandatory quarantine in an unnamed hotels in Accra at a cost to the government.

Also, the government took a bold step to ban the entry of persons in Ghana from countries with more than 200 cases.

Using the UK as an example, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said while Ghana has already introduced the mandatory quarantine measures and even gone on to ban entry for some selected travellers, the UK was now introducing similar measures.

Face masks

Ghana’s Health Ministry has directed food vendors, market traders and commercial bus drivers to wear face masks at all times.

Under the new directive, commuters on public transport, persons in commercial centres, facilities and buildings but “not limited to offices, bars, workshops, restaurants, sports arenas, spas, salons, shopping malls, churches, clinics, hospitals and all facilities accessible to the public whether private or public” are also to wear face masks at all times.

Using the UK, again to show Ghana’s measures are a step ahead of other countries’, he said the European country was yet to introduce a similar measure to prevent the spread of community infection of the contagious disease.

“They [the UK] are now talking about the mandatory wearing of masks. We have had our Ministry of Health issue that order in accordance with the Public Health Act (Act 851) which now makes it mandatory in Ghana for some categories of persons to wear masks.

“So there are number of things that we are doing that makes our case and our scenario a bit different from what people are doing out there. We are happy that some persons are beginning to learn from what we are doing here,” he said.