COVID-19: It’s time for nationwide random testing – Bureau of Public Safety
The Bureau of Public Safety (BPS) says the time has come for the government to begin a nationwide testing of the populace for COVID-19 to ascertain the country’s rate of infection.
This call comes after Ghana’s total COVID-19 cases hit more than 5, 127 with 22 deaths and 494 recoveries.
The Executive Director of BPS, Nana Yaw Akwada, said Ghana’s situation was not good enough.
“We believe it’s about time the national response team reveal their strategy to get ahead of the virus instead by conducting a nationwide random testing to obtain a good picture of the status quo and apply targeted measures of containment and management,” he said.
Ghana’s total COVID-19 infections stood at 4,700 as of May 11, 2020, but shot up by more than 400 cases on May 12.
As part of measures to contain the spread of coronavirus in Ghana, President Akufo-Addo, on Sunday, May 10, 2020, extended the ban on social gatherings to the end of the month.
This means that the ban on all school activities, religious activities and all public gatherings remain in full force.
The President explained that maintaining the ban was critical towards containing the fast-spreading coronavirus.
In his ninth address to the nation on measures to curtail the pathogen, Mr Akufo-Addo said, “The ban on public gatherings as set out in Executive Instrument (E.I.) 64 has been extended, also to the end of the month, that is May 31”.
It is the third extension of the ban, after previous two-week extensions effective April 13 and April April 27.
So far, 13 out of 16 regions across the country have recorded coronavirus cases. The Greater Accra Region tops the chart with almost 4,000 cases.