Home / HEALTH / We’ve not identified COVID-19 Omicron variant in Ghana, says GHS

We’ve not identified COVID-19 Omicron variant in Ghana, says GHS

 

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) says it has so far not recorded any case of the new COVID-19 Omicron variant in the country.

Addressing a news conference on Sunday (28 November), the director general of the GHS, Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said: “Omicron: we have not identified one [case] in Ghana. All people who have tested positive at the airport are sequenced, their samples are sequenced. We also pick samples from our reference labs across the country to do sequencing.

“Currently, they have a bunch of about 160 which they’re working on now, but there’s been no indication of Omnicron in Ghana. So all those messages flying around, it’s not true. There’s no case in Ghana,” he said.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye said there is no evidence that the new variant can be transmitted through any new means and urged Ghanaians to continue to observe the COVID-19 safety measures.

He said the government and other stakeholders will tighten enforcement of the safety protocols to avert the possibility of a spike in the number of infections in the country.

Vaccination month

Dr Kuma-Aboagye also announced that the government has declared the month of December as a vaccination month

He said the initiative will be rolled out officially on Tuesday.

“With the increasing availability of vaccines in reasonable quantity in the pipeline, we are declaring December as the month for vaccinations. So December is going to be declared as the month of vaccination and it will be launched by the honourable Minister of Health on Tuesday (30 November),” Kuma-Aboagye said.

He added, “We are looking at all the three arms of government. All health workers have been given the opportunity to vaccinate, and they stay in very strategic locations … Remember, these are the people who have been prioritised at the beginning even when we had very few vaccines.

“All security personnel will be covered, they should be vaccinated. All staff and students in secondary and tertiary institutions should be vaccinated … all workers in government institutions, and parastatals, all drivers and their mates … are expected to be vaccinated,” he said.

 

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