41 SHS students contract COVID in 4 days
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has confirmed that 41 Senior High School (SHS) students in the Greater Accra Region have contracted COVID-19 within four days.
Although he did not disclose the school(s), the Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, said the students were responding to treatment.
The physician also explained that the infection, which started among five students from the same dormitory, was detected four days ago.
Following contract tracing and testing, 41 of the students tested positive for COVID-19.
“Actually, that is about four days now, and five students started showing symptoms, and we identified their contacts, and that was over 90. We did a test, and the number of students who tested positive [was] 41,” he noted.
“The 41 affected students are asymptomatic and are confined in a dormitory because most of them were dormitory mates. Only the initial five showed symptoms and are doing well now”.
He pointed out that authorities have built the capacity of schools because through collaboration between the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Education Service for early detection, isolation and management.
He emphasized the need to continually adhere to the safety protocols of COVID-19, as it is the surest way of combating the disease.
“For us as a service, we need to assume that every person can give you the infection. That is why we are focusing on adherence to the protocols,” Asiedu-Bekoe said in an interview in an Asaase Radio interview monitored by The Ghana Report.com on Monday.
Meanwhile, Ghana has recorded 95,059 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 93,005 recoveries/discharge.
The number of active cases stands at 1,260, with 45 new cases and a COVID-19 death toll of 794.
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Measures still ongoing to control the infection, including clinical trials for two COVID-19 vaccine brands.
AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines have already been approved by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), and there are plans to introduce additional ones.
The goal is to assess the efficacy, tolerability, safety, and immunogenicity of the vaccine against COVID-19 infections.
“If we are able to generate data that shows that the vaccine is efficacious, it is going to be added to the tune of vaccines already in use, and hopefully improve on vaccine availability especially in Sub-Saharan Africa,” the lead of the Sputnik light trial, Dr Alberta Amoh, said.