Airports Reopening: No returnee has tested positive for COVID-19 - GHS

No Positive Covid-19 Cases have been recorded among international air passengers arriving at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) since its reopening, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has announced.

KIA was reopened to international flights on Tuesday, September 1, 2020, after the President gave the greenlight to reopening the country's air borders.

And speaking to the media at the Information Ministry on Thursday, September 3, 2020, Director General of GHS, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, says “So far no positive case has been found.”

Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye

According to him, the ultimate aim of the Ghanaian Government is that people arrive in Ghana negative “and truly negative.”

He stated that on day one of the airport reopening, there were three flights including KLM and Tap-Portugal.

Passengers arriving through the KIA are supposed to provide a negative PCR test result and also undergo covid-19 test at a cost of $150.

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In other related developments, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has dismissed claims that the COVID-19 testing device used at the Kotoka International Airport was not reliable.

A virologist at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Dr Kofi Bonney had in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM  said about half of the test to be conducted at the airport may be inaccurate because the test being conducted was not a PCR test but an antigen test which was less sensitive.

But a statement released Tuesday and signed by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the FDA, Delese Mimi Darko, said Dr Bonney’s claims were “inaccurate and unscientific.”

 It said the testing authorised for detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus at KIA was not a rapid diagnostic test kit (RDT) but rather a device which detects the virus in nasopharyrigeal (nasal) swabs.