18,000 COVID-19 samples await results

• Posted on April 22, 2020April 22, 2020
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Results from some 18,000 samples being tested for coronavirus (Covid-19) are yet to be released, President Akufo-Addo has indicated.

In his seventh address to lift the three-week lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic, the President said 18,000 samples picked from the government’s enhanced contact tracing and surveillance activities constituted a backlog of laboratory testing for Covid-19 which the Ghana Health Service (GHS) was supervising.

According to him, total samples tested so far now stands at 68,591 out of the 86,000 contacts traced, pointing out further that out of the total number tested, 1,042 representing 1.52 % have tested positive for the virus.

Ghana has not recorded any new Covid-19 cases since the President’s address on Sunday, April 19.

The president in his seventh address to the nation after Ghana recorded its first case on March 12 said, “Since the first two cases of infections were recorded on our shores, we have, till date, traced some 86,000 contacts out of which we have test results of 68,591 contacts.”

“There is, thus, a backlog of some 18,000 tests whose results are yet to be received,” he explained

He said the overwhelming majority of the contacts were established in Accra and Kumasi during the three-week partial lockdown which affected Greater Accra, Greater Kumasi, Tema and Kasoa.

He said 67,549, representing 98.5%, tested negative for the virus with 99 persons completely recovering from the infection and had been discharged from treatment facilities.

President Akufo-Addo further indicated that 930 persons, who had been isolated, were responding to treatment either in their homes or in treatment facilities.

“These 930 persons, after their treatment, will soon undergo the mandatory two tests to determine if they have also fully recovered from the virus or otherwise,” he added.

Meanwhile, the GHS has indicated that the results of the backlog of samples when released do not mean the number of new cases recorded on the day of the release of the report.

There are recorded cases in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Northern, Volta, Upper East, Upper West, Central, Western and North East regions.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri