Majority of COVID-19 deaths amongst males – GHS

• Posted on May 12, 2020May 23, 2020
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

More males are dying from Coronavirus (Covid-19) in Ghana, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has announced.

Head of Public Health, GHS, Dr. Badu Sarkodie, said among the 22 Covid-19 deaths recorded in Ghana, males accounted for 68.2 per cent of all deaths recorded.

He further noted that males were the highest across the deaths recorded among all age groups except the 25 to 34-year olds.

“There is clear preponderance for males in respect with COVID-19 associated deaths,” he said.

Dr. Sarkodie speaking at the Ministry of Information Covid-19 press briefing in Accra on May 12, said the age range for mortalities recorded were from 9 to 82 years with a mean age of 55.5 years and a median age of 58 years.

“The mean age for males was 52.4 years, compared with 58.1 years for females. The median age for both sexes is 58 years,” he stated.

Co-morbidities

The head of public health, explaining the cause of deaths said only two out of the total number deaths did not have any underlying health condition.

He said 16 of the persons who died of Covid-19 had hypertension representing a 72.7 per cent, of co-morbidity.  
Diabetes Mellitus also accounted for 10 lives representing a co-morbidity of 45.5 per cent while chronic liver disease, obesity and asthma claimed two lives each all accounting for 27.3 per cent of co-morbidity.

Stroke, prostate enlargement, acute kidney injury, interstitial pulmonary disease and congestive cardiac failure claimed a life each with a total co-morbidity of 22.5 per cent.

Ghana has recorded 5,127 cases of Covid-19 with a case fatality rate 0f 0.43 per cent.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri