Government encouraged to ensure testing on land and sea borders
Executive Director of the African Center for Health Policy Research and Analysis(ACH-PRA) Dr Thomas Anabah, has entreated the Ghana Health Service(GHS) to do thorough coronavirus testing at all the entry points into the country for the new Delta strain rather than focusing on the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) alone.
He said the GHS should not be concentrating only on airport testing to conclude that the new strain is not in the communities yet but to pay attention to the land borders and other entry points leading into the country to be certain the virulent Delta variant is not imported into the country.
According to Dr Anabah, that is the only way the Ghana Health Service(GHS) can be sure to stamp out the new Delta and other variants from running into the general populace of the country.
He said this in an interview with Komla Adom on the Mid Day news on TV3, Wednesday, June 23.
He was reacting on the heels of the recent declaration by the Ghana Health Service that the new Delta strain has not run into the communities yet because it has been contained at the airport.
He said “if they are not testing in the communities but rather testing in all the entry points of the country, they will be able to detect all those coming in with different variants just like they did and detected this at the airport. So if they are assuring us that testing is going on very well at all our entry points, not only at the airport because we have people entering through other points other than the airports.
“Through the seaports, through land, we have people from other places through Nigeria to enter Ghana. If all those places, they are doing thorough testing and surveillance there, catching all those who are positive and sequestering them before they are sent into the communities, we can be rest assured that, that variant is still not in circulation within the system. But if that is not done, we should be thinking that it could be but we pray it shouldn’t be,” he emphasized.