The novel Coronavirus continues to be a widespread canker in our world today as it continues to spread across the globe. COVID-19 which has been declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization has since recorded over 1,412,103 confirmed cases, 298,389 recovered and 81,103 deaths with about 184 countries involved according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource center.  Currently, the United States of America leads the chart with over 386,800 confirmed cases followed by Spain and Italy with 140,511 and 135,586 confirmed cases respectively.

As at 18^th April, 2020, a total of 834 cases had been confirmed in Ghana. The table below shows the breakdown of the current situation:

The President of the Republic of Ghana on his fourth address to the nation on 27^th March, 2020, outlined more enhanced measures to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic following the exponentially increasing rate of confirmed cases in the country. He reiterated the measures outlined to halt the importation of the virus into the country by closure of all borders. At the time of the address, out of 1,030 persons put under mandatory quarantine, 78 of those tested had tested positive, purging the percentage of imported cases at 7.6%. Regardless of previous efforts, it had become eminent to enforce rater stricter measures to contain and halt the spread of the virus within the country, especially in Accra, Tema, Kasoa and Kumasi which have been identified by the Ghana Health Service as “hotspots” of the infection. He emphasized that, even though it may be said that the number of infections in the country may be relatively low, acting purposefully now, can give the country a chance of preventing escalation of the numbers.

Effective 01:00am on Monday 30^th March, 2020, the President, in pursuant to the powers granted the President of the Republic under the Imposition of Restrictions Act, 2020 (Act 1012), imposed restrictions on movement of persons in the Greater Accra Metropolitan area (including Awutu Senya East), Greater Kumasi Metropolitan area and contiguous districts for a period of 2 weeks, subject to review. This he explained was to give the opportunity to try to break the chain of transmission of the virus, and scale-up effective contact tracing of persons who have come into contact with infected persons, test them for the virus and if necessary, quarantine and isolate them for treatment, should they test positive for the virus. In this period, there will be no inter-city movement of vehicles and aircrafts for private or commercial purposes for the areas of the restrictive measures, except for vehicles and aircrafts providing essential services and those carrying cargo.

 Over the past weeks, the nations of the world including well developed nations have been brought to their knees because of this pandemic. However, every country strives to protect its people and as much as possible prevent the spread of the virus. In Ghana, aside what the government is doing to contain the spread, what has also become important is an intensive education of the people of the country, getting them to understand the disease, how it is transmitted, how to stay safe and one most important details which could gradually become a challenge, stigmatization.

Recent news items have had people and relatives of persons that have tested positive and in quarantine receiving treatment share their experiences on stigmatization from people in their communities. Some even tagging families as “corona family”.

Dr. Michael Owusu, the director for Centre for Health Systems Strengthening in an interview appealed that people should not stigmatize those that have been diagnosed or contacted in the contact tracing process as this will make the contact tracing difficult. He cited that, members of a community begin to stigmatize persons and households that contact tracers go to take their samples for testing, sometimes to the extent of becoming aggressive towards them. He said that when this becomes the situation, it becomes difficult for those doing the contact tracing to do their job as people refuse to oblige to the necessary protocols because of fear of stigmatization in the community or people not being truthful about coming into contact with confirmed positive cases. Dr. Owusu stated that, it is for this same reason that we find people not being truthful about their travel history. He advised that we educate people on the subject matter while encouraging those who need to be tested to do so without fear or failure. Follow link for interview.

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The virus is one that cannot be hidden as the symptoms will eventually show and expose the infected person. In trying to contain the virus, early detection is also integral. According to the World Health organization, a person is most contagious while showing symptoms, however, there have been instances where people have transmitted the virus while not showing any symptoms (asymptomatic individuals). This is why the Ghana Health Service has escalated its contact tracing efforts. A team of health workers, including epidemiologists, laboratory scientists and psychologists have been trained and sent out just for the purpose of contact tracing. In preventing community spread which will be devastating for the nation, efficient contact tracing and testing has become imperative. In an interview, Dr. Michael Owusu explained and gave a breakdown of what it means for the coronavirus to have a reproductive number of 2.5. He explained that, the measures put in place coupled with efficient and effective contact tracing was bound to reduce the reproductive number eventually, thereby reducing the number of infections and all things going well, be able to totally eradicate it from our county. Follow link for interview

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