Covid-19: Obuasi Records Highest Cases In Ashanti Region

The Obuasi Municipality currently has the highest number of the novel coronavirus cases in the Ashanti Region.

17 of the 43 districts in the Region have so far recorded cases of the disease.

The Ashanti Region has a total of 163 confirmed Coronavirus cases out of which 47 of the people who tested positive were from Obuasi.

A further breakdown of the state of the pandemic in the region shows that 56 percent of the affected persons are males while the remaining 44 percent are females.

Authorities at the Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) say most of the people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the region are between the ages of 20 and 29.

At a news conference, the Regional Director, Dr. Emmanuel Tenkorang said plans are advanced to increase the number of testing laboratories to complement efforts of the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR).

“So far, 17 out of our 43 districts have reported cases. 56 percent of the 163 were males and 44 percent are females. The youngest case that we have had here is 10 years old and the oldest 83 years. 37 people have so far recovered and three are currently on admission. The number of contacts that we are actively following as of now is 54,” he said.

“So far, KCCR has tested 41, 986 samples. It is our plan to decentralize the labs. Apart from KCCR, we are also working with the Ghana Health Service to set up at least two labs in addition to the KCCR lab. One will be based in our public health reference lab in Kumasi South. We are also talking to the Komfo Ankoye Hospital whether we can use their labs. There are other facilities that we can put in shape so that the testing goes faster. So far, that has been our major bottleneck as far as our COVID-19 fight is concerned.” Other affected services

Dr. Emmanuel Tenkorang added that the pandemic has also affected the performance of its routine services such as immunization drives as well as antenatal and nutrition activities at health facilities in the Region.

“We have what we call annual, quarterly and monthly performance review. We had our last quarterly review last week and the real data we have is what we have presented. So information that is available to us is that OPD attendance, antenatal, family planning childhood immunization coverage, nutrition activities have gone down,” he said.

“What we are saying, in general, is that utilization of tour services, in general, has gone down and we don’t have anything to attribute it to you. We can only attribute to is COVID-19.”

---citinewsroom