Ghana’s health minister contracts Covid-19

JOHANNESBURG, June 15 (ANA) – Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo has disclosed that the country’s health minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, 64, is in stable condition after contracting the coronavirus.

According to the West Africa Herald, the president made this known during a national broadcast to provide an update on the pandemic in Ghana.

“Let us wish our hard-working minister for health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty,” Akufo-Addo said.

In his address, Akufo-Addo said that, fortunately, the number of Covid-19-related deaths in the country remained very low.

“With 54 deaths currently reported by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) thus far in Ghana, the ratio of deaths to positive cases stands at 0.4%, compared to the global average of 5.5% and the African average of 2.6%. The number of severe and critically ill also continues to be low.

“I am relating all these figures not to engender any false, feel-good factor, but as statements of fact that must provide the context for us, when we examine our figures,” he added. “If, indeed, we are to be guided by the data, then we must look at the data in all its ramifications, not just one particular aspect of them. That is the proper way to do justice to the data.”

The president warned that the low figures were in no way an indication or instruction for citizens to be less vigilant, or careless; instead, citizens needed to be more disciplined.

“As we begin to ease the restrictions, we must be even more disciplined in our adherence to the personal hygiene and social distancing measures we have become accustomed to. We must keep fit, and we must continue to eat our local foods to boost our immune systems.

“This is how we can prevent our health-care services and our heroic health-care workers from being overwhelmed, due to an increase in demand for hospital care,” he said.

The presidency has stated that Ghana has recorded 11,964 positive coronavirus cases but has also carried out one of the highest number of tests in Africa – 254,331 – and has one of the lowest number of deaths from the virus.

In the latest figures supplied by the GHS, some 54 people have died of complications related to the virus, while 4,258 have recovered.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher