The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN-Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh has disclosed that the telecommunication giant has been supporting health officials in tracing persons who have come into contact with confirmed COVID-19 patients in the country.

The Ghana Health Service has mentioned that its officials have traced about 575 persons who had come into contact with the 24 affected persons in Ghana as of March 22rd, 2020.

In an interview with Accra based Citi FM on Monday, March 23, 2020, the MTN CEO said his organization will continue to support the exercise.

“Contact tracing is a very scientific process and today we’ve actually been supporting the Ministry of Health and the contact tracing committee to actually help trace people. We have been contacted a few times to support in different ways. There are a variety of ways you can support in such an instance some of which we have available today and some we don’t. There are ways to use artificial intelligence to actually zero in very quickly on people others have come in contact with and that process is very fairly accurate and very fast and allows us to isolate people very quickly and will invariably help in the isolation of the disease over time.

“Today we don’t have this sophistication working currently but we are looking at ways we can implement a solution around this if possible in a month or so,” he said.

“This will be something we could have done way before this unanticipated situation but it continues to emphasize the need for us to be more sophisticated and when it comes to the technology side.”

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The Ghana Health Service (GHS) confirmed that the country has recorded three additional cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The recent development sends the total tally of confirmed covid-19 cases to 24 as of March 23, 2020. 

The GHS disclosed that "among the confirmed cases, 17 are of Ghanaian nationality and seven other nationals namely: Norway, Lebanon, China, France, and UK". 
One person has died from the disease in Ghana; a Kumasi-based Lebanese trader.

Contact Tracing is part of measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country. All persons who may have come into contact with any coronavirus patient will also be tested for the virus.

This was announced by President Nana Akufo-Addo in his third national address on Saturday, March 21, 2020.
According to him, this forms part of measures to improve the contact-tracing process and make it easier and more effective to tackle the outbreak in the country.

“The Ministry of Health will not only step up its contact tracing efforts but will also see to it that all persons who have been identified as having come into contact with infected persons are tested for the virus. More personal protection equipment is being procured to beef up supplies for our frontline health workers.

Fifty thousand additional test kits have been ordered, and are expected in the country very shortly,” the President added.