Suspected coronavirus patients in Ghana test negative
6th February 2020
Officials of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research have announced that test results from blood samples taken from a Chinese and Argentine nationals in Ghana suspected to have contracted the deadly Coronavirus have proven negative.
The test was conducted at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research at Legon.
The two had reported sick at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital with symptoms similar to those associated with Coronavirus disease. This lead to health officials suspecting they might have contracted the disease.
The Director of Public Health of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Badu Sarkodie has told Starr News that the two foreign nationals had been in Ghana from China between September 2019 and January 2020.
This is the first suspected case in Ghana and the fourth in Africa.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) has designated the Ridge Hospital (Greater Accra Regional Hospital) and Tema General Hospital as initial case management centres in Accra to deal with the Corona Virus Infection.
Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu told the media that a total of GHc2.5million ($455,000) has been committed to the fight.
The disease was confirmed in the Chinese city of Wuhan on January 7, 2020. Cases have since been confirmed in other Asian countries, Europe and the United States.
The new coronavirus, labelled 2019-nCoV and thought to have originated in a seafood market in Wuhan, is part of a family of viruses that include the common cold and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which also originated in China in 2002.