Covid-19: Ghana Ahead of US, UK in Enhanced Testing and Tracing of Cases – Vice Prez Bawumia

The Vice President of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says the country is ahead of the USA, the UK and most African countries with regard to enhanced tracing and testing of suspected persons with COVID-19.

According to Bawumia, Ghana is ranked among top 20 countries in the world performing well in dealing with the pandemic situation.

“In the context of contact tracing, we are trying to identify all the people who have been in contact with a positive person so we can test them as well. We are ahead of the countries such as the USA and UK in this and we are also pursuing a strategy of aggressive testing. In terms of testing the Coronavirus, Ghana, on the basis of the available data we have, is in the top 20 countries in the world and on the basis of this data too, in Africa, we are number one per capita in terms of testing. In terms of numbers of tests, South Africa is number one and we are second but in terms of testing per capita in terms of testing per our population, we are leading in the continent,” the Vice President said.

“We have tested 37,954 people and if you look at Africa alone, the data seems to show the total number of tests is under 10,000 and Ghana has tested 37,954 of the said number and we’ve increased the testing centres to six but what is significant with Ghana’s approach is we are chasing the virus and trying to get ahead of it,” he added.

Dr. Bawumia made the remark on Monday, April 13, 2020, when he launched the GH COVID-19 Tracker App.

The App is a user friendly and free to download mobile software application powered by the Ministry of Communication to among other things, help the government in identifying and tracing persons who have come into contact with persons infected with COVID-19.

It can also be accessed through the USSD code *769# on all networks with options in six local languages.

READ ALSO:
Rapid Increase in Ghana’s Covid-19 Cases due to Enhance Tracing and Testing – Information Minister

While launching the App, Dr. Bawumia said, “It will help us easily track people with the virus, [and] those who have had contact with others. It is also useful in quarantine reliability, in case certain individuals need self-quarantine.”

Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful also said the newly launched Ghana COVID-19 tracker will boost the country’s fight against the pandemic by providing accurate data to curb the spread of the virus at the launch.

She said the tracker has been designed to quicken the contact tracing efforts and also to discover information that may be difficult to gather through the manual process.