Nine-year-old youngest to die of coronavirus in Ghana
Ghana’s youngest coronavirus fatality is a nine-year-old, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has reported.
The Director of Public Health at the GHS, Dr Badu Sarkodie, revealed this Tuesday, May 12 during a press briefing.
“The age range for the deaths is from nine years to 82 years,” Dr Sarkodie said.“The youngest is nine years old and the oldest 82 years”.
He explained that the case fatality rate for the country was 0.43%. Hence, “Case fatality rate for Ghana is among the best globally”.
As of May 11, cases recorded out of total tests of 106, 203 were 5,127 with 494 recoveries and 22 deaths.
The two key determinants of COVID-19 deaths are quality of care delivered for carriers and the speed in reporting the cases to the appropriate authorities.
Statistics on the deaths indicate that the average age is 55.5 years and the median age is 58 years. The average age of female deaths is higher at 58.1 years as compared to that of males reported to be 52.4 years.
There is a higher chance of male deaths with the proportion of male to female deaths 2.14 to 1.00. This implies at least two male deaths for every one female who dies.
Out of the total deaths, 20 representing 91% had underlying health conditions with two (9%) being purely due to coronavirus.
The Greater Accra Region has the highest number of deaths with 68.2% cases followed by the Ashanti Region which is 18.2% and the Upper East 9.1%.
Hypertension is the highest among the underlying health conditions and contributes up to 72.7% of the health conditions.