COVID-19: Ghana Not On The Verge Of Second Wave – GHS

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has downplayed suggestions of a looming second wave of COVID-19 infections in the country.

According to the Director of GHS, Dr Patrick Kumah-Aboagye, available data does not support the suggestions.

Ghana’s cumulative COVID-19 case count is nearly 50,000 with 620 active cases and 320 deaths.

The current numbers show a slow but steady rise in active cases over the month of October, raising concerns that Ghana may have to soon deal with a second wave of COVID-19 as is happening in other countries if nothing is done to arrest the situation but Dr. Kumah-Aboagye does not believe a second wave of the virus is looming.

“In terms of a second wave, those of us who are looking at the figures have not seen any indication in that direction. You normally would have used our moving averages, it's still on the website, we have not tempered with it. I keep saying that we are where we are because we did many things including testing, isolation, treatment and the adherence to the protocol.”

The Ghana Health Service boss, however, appealed to Ghanaians to continue to strictly adhere to all COVID-19 preventive activities including the wearing of face masks in public to protect the gains made by the country.

“Compliance to the protocol has reduced and it is important we all go back to it so that we do not get an even increase of cases. But, certainly, there is no hike,” he said.

Commenting on the new study by the West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) which revealed that Ghana's risk of COVID-19 infections has been significantly higher than the confirmed total cases, Dr. Patrick Kumah-Aboagye said the report is not detailed hence cannot be wholly accepted to be accurate.

“The report is an abstract; it doesn't give you enough details. I am not here to dispute their findings. They have done the study, we are dealing with the virus, and we are all learning to deal with the virus. One of the things we need to find out is the fact that globally we know that there has been a test of mortality rate of about 2% and that even if you have asymptomatic rate of about 90%, 10% of [their] 1.2 million is a significant number of people that we should see in Ghana. 2% mortality of 1.2 million should be a significant number of people who should have died. I think those are the questions we need to clarify. Unless we are saying that those global figures from WHO are wrong,” he said.

---citinewsroom