Covid-19: Contact Tracing In Ayawaso West Begins

The Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly has begun the planned testing of some residents within the Municipality.

Citi News’ Umaru Sanda Amadu who visited the Municipality said more than two teams had been formed comprising immigration officers and the Ghana Health Service to undertake the contact tracing and further test some of the residents who fall within the mandatory testing category.

“There is already a team out and about in the Ayawaso Municipality – Dzorwulu, Legon and surrounding communities. What is happening is that Immigration Officers will be leading health officials to the homes of people who returned before the mandatory quarantine period.

“What they will do is that they have the database of travellers returning into the country. They will direct them appropriately and have them go into the houses and do the appropriate work they have to do. If they need to collect samples they will.”

The Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly has been identified as a hotspot for the virus.

The Ayawaso West Municipality includes areas such as Legon, Dzorwulu, East Legon, West Legon, Okponglo, Abelenkpe, Roman Ridge, Airport Residential and surrounding communities.

It also houses the University of Ghana where a student tested positive for COVID-19 before the closure of the institution.

The case involved a non-resident student who returned from an international trip.

However, some 94 students and staff of the University of Ghana who came into contact with the student have all tested negative after a 14-day isolation period.

We're undertaking enhanced contact tracing not mass testing

Meanwhile, the Government has denied that it is conducting a mandatory mass screening of citizens for Coronavirus.

“I'll stress, there is no policy as yet for compulsory mass-testing that people are parading on social media,” Minister of Health, Kweku Agyeman Manu said during a media briefing on Wednesday.

He explained that “It is correct that we have teams that are working now in Accra and Kumasi for what we call contact testing. Those who have tested positive had contact with people and those who travelled into the country before the quarantine are already in the community. We have got a tall list of them with their contacts, telephone numbers, and from the database that we have, almost all of them are in Accra and Kumasi with isolated cases across the country.”

“These are the people we are trying to reach and when we get to each of them, we'll try to take samples from that person and transport for a test,” the Minister clarified.

This comes after information circulating on social media indicating that health officials will be going to particular areas in Accra to conduct compulsory tests on everyone.

But the Health Minister said such is not the case.

---citinewsroom