135 students, staff of Achimota school contract new Delta variant of Coronavirus

By;brightwebtv/nana asare barimah

• 46 active cases out of an initial 135 have been recorded after over 800 persons were tested in the school

• Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Kuma Aboagye says results of 293 samples collected from the 800 are yet to be released

Some 135 cases of the new COVID-19 variant from Delta-India, have been recorded in one of Ghana’s elite schools; Achimota.

During a Coronavirus update by the Ghana Health Service at the Information Ministry on Sunday, July 4, it was revealed that the cases were recorded after some students in the school were tested.

Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, in an interview with GhanaWeb Saturday, disclosed that most of the students who contracted the virus were asymptomatic and are responding to treatment though he declined to give further details.

“There’s an outbreak in the school (name withheld), they did some tests, some of them had a Delta strain…Noguchi decided to do specialized testing…when they did the tests, they realized that some of the students had the Delta strain…most of the students are actually asymptomatic and I’m sure by Tuesday, all of them would have been discharged,” Dr. Asiedu-Bekoe said.

He noted that these recorded cases of the Delta strain show that the highly contagious variant is in the community.

But giving more details about the fast-spreading Delta variant which was first recorded in Ghana some few days ago, officials from Ghana Health Service disclosed that some students had been infected.

Addressing journalists on Sunday, Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Kuma Aboagye indicated that over 800 students and staff were tested for COVID after three students earlier tested positive between 14th and 16th June 2021.

He noted that out of the over 800 tested, results of 550 that came showed 135 testing positive.

89 students and staff have so far recovered leaving 46 active cases in the school.

“Because of an enhanced approach trying to contain the situation we’ve had about 843 students have been sampled. 348 of them are boarding students, 459 are day students, 36 of them that are teaching and nonteaching staff have been tested” he said.

Adding, “We have received results of about 843 samples…so far of the 550, 135 tested positive, so we’re waiting for the 293 samples which were collected from yesterday.

“All 135 cases at the time of diagnosis were either asymptomatic or had mild to moderate illness. One staff also recorded positive.”

Watch the full breakdown as given by Dr Kuma Aboagye: