COVID-19 infections rising among children in the Ashanti Region - KATH

Head of the Child Health Directorate at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital has expressed concern over a worrying trend of more minors contracting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Ashanti Region.

Prof. Sampson Antwi said the rate of infection among kids below the age of 14 years is rising.

According to him, the troubling trend could be attributed to the new strain of the virus.

“We are having a huge surge in COVID positive cases and the disease initially, children were said to be spared. We had 14 the whole of last year but this year, just the spate of 10-days, we got 9 positive cases,” he told JoyNews as quoted by Pulsegh.

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He also said the hospital has been overstretched as a results of handling many COVID-19 cases, and is in dire need of space.

“The COVID strain that we are having now is really also affecting children seriously. If in less than 2-weeks we are getting 9 cases, we don’t know where we are going to go when we are already full,” says Prof Antwi.

“We are not in the position even to bring new cases. I don’t mean COVID. Anybody who is sick when you come here, we will just triage you in front [of the hospital] probably in an ambulance that you came in with.

“If there’s something that we need to do for you, we can do to stabilize you and send you back because our wards are full,” he explained.

Meanwhile, as part of steps to tackle the pandemic, the Ghana Health Ministry has directed all public health testing laboratories not to charge residents in Ghana for COVID-19 testing.

The Ministry in a circular to all public health testing laboratories dated January 27, 2021, said it “has decided that public COVID-19 testing laboratories providing walk-in services can charge only charge travellers for testing”.

It added that “all other walk-in requests such as ill-health, contact tracing and exposure must be done free-of-charge using public health resources.”