Dr. Kuma-Aboagye giving the update
THE GHANA Health Service (GHS) has cautioned the general public to strictly adhere to the COVID-19 protocols during the festive season, to prevent the exponential increase in active cases.
According to the GHS, available data showed that people who usually visited Ghana during the festive season were from countries that were currently experiencing surges in their case count hence, people should make it a point to observe the preventive etiquettes of the virus during the period.
The Director General of the GHS, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, gave the warning yesterday during his update on Ghana’s COVID-19 fight in Accra.
“We are here to explain to you the risk we face with Christmas, our own gatherings, our practices and the fact that we are going to have a lot of people coming into the country opens us up to contracting the virus. And that’s why we are cautioning the entirety of the population to be on the guard against it,” he said.
He said currently, Ghana has only 4 active cases cautioning that the country should not be complacent with the 4 active cases as back in 2020, adding it took only 2 cases to spread the virus.
He said there was a potential for a new variant as it was experienced towards Christmas in 2021 when the Omicron variant was detected in Ghana.
On the number of doses administered, Dr. Kuma-Aboagye said 21 million doses of vaccines have so far been administered. He said though the number of people vaccinated against the virus was remarkable and exceeded government’s target, the country did not have the herd immunity yet, “and as a result, we shouldn’t engage in activities that has the likelihood of increasing our case count.”
He, therefore, encouraged people to continue to take the jab as it was the surest way of preventing the contraction of the virus.
BY Ebenezer Kofi Amponsah