Ghana’s COVID-19 figures aren’t been massaged – Deputy Health Minister

A deputy Minister for Health, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has dismissed allegations that the government may be hiding the actual coronavirus figures to water down the severity of the pandemic in Ghana.

He said Ghanaian officials have been transparent with its dealings against the outbreak.

This comes after President Akufo-Addo announced that the country’s COVID-19 death rate continues to remain very low at 0.5%

But some persons believe the Akufo-Addo government may be putting out low figures for political gains.

But speaking on the The Point of View, Dr. Okoe Boye said there is no way, any government can successfully cover-up information on the virus.

“It is easy to find out if a country is deliberately evading testing in order to keep its case count low by checking the mortality rates. If your total count is 5,000, you will have to divide it by the denominator. The bigger the denominator, the lower the mortality rate you get. Ghana has consistently maintained a mortality rate between 0.5 to 0.6. In fact, the case count in the United States in the initial stages was derived from routine surveillance. So with these countries, out of say, a 100 cases, you may have 80% who are clinically unwell.”

“But when Ghana records 100 cases, most of them are asymptomatic and happen to have been found out because they were traced. Say you have 10 cases, and you trace 10 contacts for each, you will have to test 100 people. Same way, 30 cases may get you to test 300 persons. It was around the period we recorded our first imported cases as a country that we did a lot of the testing and tracing to identify those who may have been infected. That is a way to assure that we really have not departed from the testing culture in the quest to beat down numbers. Our testing rate is as a result of the consistency in mortality,” he added.

“Second proof that we are not hiding anything is to trace the mortality rate. If indeed we are trying to hide the number of cases, it will eventually show. These things cannot be hidden. Most of the health professionals do not toe to party lines. When the cases go up, they will display it for all to see. That is why when the ICU’s were getting overwhelmed, it was made public. So if COVID-19 is going up, it will show up in the mortality rate eventually,  it cannot be hidden"  he explained.