Gov’t may not extend lockdown – Health Minister

The government of Ghana may not extend the 14-day partial lockdown, Minister of Health Kwaku Agyemang Manu has revealed.

According to him, the directive has so far been successful and the lockdown has made contact tracing in the past four days very effective, hence his belief that there may not be the need for extension after it expires.

“…we pray that data that we get after the two weeks may probably give us an indication of the situation Ghana is in now. If for three-four days after doing several tests we are getting zero, zero, zero then there will not be any need for us to continue with the lockdown. That is the effort we are trying to put in and we will test a lot number of people through our contact tracing mechanism. If we are able to do that successfully I believe we’ll get data that we’ll stand on to revise government’s decision for the lockdown of the system we have.”

The Minister of Health made the comments when a Chinese delegation donated video conference facilities to the Ministry of Health and the Greater Accra Regional Hospital(Ridge).

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Friday announced a lockdown of some parts of the country for two weeks effective dawn of Monday 31st March 2020.

The affected cities like Accra, Kumasi, and Tema.

“People in the affected areas must stay at home in the next two weeks. If you must go out, it should be to get essentials, go to the bank or to use a public toilet,” President Akufo-Addo said.

He also said only essential service providers and persons involved in the food value chain are exempted from the lockdown.