Agona East District records first COVID-19 case

The Agona East District of the Central Region has recorded its first confirmed case of the COVID-19 virus with 19 people placed under self–quarantine after contract tracing to combat the spread of the virus.

Mr Dennis Armah-Frempong, District Chief Executive (DCE) for Agona East who disclosed to the Media at Nsaba said the patient is a 50-year old woman who had just returned from Niger through an illegal route to Ghana and was showing symptoms of the disease.

The DCE stated that a report was made to his office and the district Rapid Response Team made up of medical personnel was dispatched to her house where her sample was taken and sent to Negochi Memory and Research Institute in Accra, which turned out to be positive.

According to Mr Armah-Frempong, the sample of her three-year-old child was also awaiting results.

He said the other 18 people have been placed under mandatory quarantine after contract tracing while other persons who interacted with the woman were being traced for testing.

The DCE said 10 of the 18 persons whose samples were sent for testing after the contract tracing tested negative while the rest were pending.

He said the confirmation of the COVID-19 case in the District has given additional impetus for the COVID-19 Team to intensify its educational campaign to all communities about the dangers of the pandemic.

The DCE praised the frontline workers in the Agona East District for their tireless, commitment, hard work and sense of fellow feeling towards the fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic

The DCE stated that the team has been beefed up and more vehicles added to reach out to every citizen to sensitize then on the need to wear face masks, wash hands with soap under running water, use alcohol-based hand sanitizers and observe all other health and social protocols to overcome the virus.

He called on Ghanaians not to politicize the virus saying, the disease was real and had ravaged the economy of Countries the World over.

Mr Armah-Frempong expressed grave concern about the attitude of some people who have defied COVID-19 pandemic restrictions to organize funerals, church, and other activities secretly to stop the acts before the law caught up with them.

He recalled an incident last weekend at Agona Mensakrom where the funeral of three deceased persons was held with more than 100 mourners attending and it took the Response Team to disperse the crowd.

The DCE said the action of the people defied the Executive Instrument(EI)64, which mandated President of Ghana to place a ban on social activities to prevent the spread of the Pandemic.

The DCE appealed to Chiefs, Assembly members, Unit committee members, opinion leaders, and other stakeholders in the Agona East to support the campaign on the health Protocols outlined by President Akufo-Addo and GHS.

The DCE appealed to the Youth who always played football in various communities to stop and adopt different strategies to exercise their bodies to avoid contracting the virus.

The DCE said the Assembly has distributed over 6,000 face masks, 4, 000, veronica buckets, tissue papers, 10,000 alcohol-based hand sanitizers, and others to health centers, palaces, communities, and individuals to support the fight against COVID-19 Pandemic.

Mr Kofi Quaining Mends, Agona East Direct Director of Health Service urged the people in the District not to fear because the Rapid Response Team was working feverishly to undertake more contract tracing to check the deadly virus.