The Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has hinted at a likely introduction of restrictions by the government in some parts of Ghana, to curtail the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country.  

The minister said a restriction or any other new precautionary measure the government may adopt, will be aimed at stopping a community spread of the disease.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah in an interview with Accra based Citi News said the government has taken a number of proactive steps in dealing with COVID-19 and the passage of the Imposition of Restrictions law will give the government room to step up its measures.

“So far, every step of the way, the government has been very proactive with coming up with measures to contain the situation.

Those final rafts of measures now that the law has been put in place may include some restrictions in some parts of the country but whatever will be done will be with the objective of ensuring that we totally negate the potential for community spread,” he said.

Some Civil Society Groups and major stakeholders have clamoured for a lockdown of the country.

The Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), which is at the forefront of testing for COVID-19 cases, called for a lockdown on human movement as another proactive solution to the escalation of the community spread of the COVID-19 in Ghana.

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The Ghana Medical Association has also reiterated calls for a lockdown of movements in the country in the wake of the outbreak.

The biggest opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC) urged the government to speedily take the decision.

The NDC argued that, the only realistic window of opportunity available to Ghana, to put in an effective mechanism to control the spread of the disease should be measured in days rather than weeks, as we race against time.

Ghana has so far recorded 68 cases of COVID-19 including three deaths.

38 of the confirmed positive cases, which forms a majority, was detected among some persons who were mandatorily quarantined by the government after arriving in the country hours to the closure of the country’s air, sea and land ports.

The other 30 confirmed cases were confirmed in the general population in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions.

The Ghana Health Service has indicated that the majority of the confirmed cases are Ghanaians, most of whom imported the virus from other parts of the world.

The government has emphasized its determination to ensure that there are no cases of local transmission of the virus in the country.