Professor Abraham Kwabena Annan
THE DIRECTOR of Noguchi Memorial Institute (NMI), Professor Abraham Kwabena Annan, has appealed passionately to the media to engage people with expertise in science to talk about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and other related matters.
He said apart from the fact that those without any knowledge on the subject are misinforming the public on the disease, thereby impeding the fight against the pandemic, it is a sin against God for any person to lie on a serious matter like COVID-19.
Speaking on Accra-based ‘Oman FM’ yesterday, Prof. Annan insisted that people without knowledge in science were confusing the issues, thereby putting unnecessary fear into people.
According to him, fear is a dangerous phenomenon which can suddenly change a person’s immune system for the worse, and that could lead to premature death. He indicated that the first aid to coronavirus is to remain fearless.
“The first aid to coronavirus is not to be afraid. Fear is dangerous; it is super dangerous because if your immune system is even strong to fight the virus, fear can change it and you will die prematurely,” he emphasized.
He said being fearless was not a licence for anybody not to adhere to precautionary and preventive measures, such as regular handwashing with soap under running water, physical distancing, no handshaking, and use of sanitizer, adding “if we fail to adhere to these measures, then we must prepare ourselves for the worse. This is where the problem is.”
“We have to follow the preventive measures. I know many Ghanaians still doubt the severity of the disease, and some people are also peddling lies about the infection,” he stated.
He wondered why some people continuously expressed doubt about test cases that had been run by Noguchi. “If anyone still doubts what we have done as scientists at Noguchi then the person has moved into a different realm and qualified to be described as a doubting Thomas,” he pointed out.
Prof. Annan called on the public to wear nose masks, explaining that the coronavirus, which was known to be transferred in droplets, can also be transmitted through air as the WHO has alerted the world.
Coronavirus Nature
On the nature of coronavirus in Ghana, the Noguchi Director stated that their scientific investigations revealed that the virus tends to ‘differ’ a little from the one discovered in China.
According to him, what accounts for the ‘slight’ change is due to change of environment, pointing out that the virus can reproduce itself a thousand times in less than a minute.
“While it takes between 15 and 16 years for human to grow and reproduce, the virus takes less than a minute to multiply in thousand times,” he indicated.
By Ernest Kofi Adu