Ghana prepares remote facility to quarantine persons with coronavirus

Ghana is working to secure a remotely located facility to be used as quarantine centre for novel coronavirus (covid-19) cases.

Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu told parliamentarians Wednesday that a quarantine centre has already been established in the country.

“Another remotely located 100-bed capacity facility is being secured for the purpose of quarantine for eligible persons,” he announced and assured the facility will be ready for use in two weeks from now.

The coronavirus which broke out in January in China’s central city of Wuhan has killed more than 3,000 people globally, according to the BBC.

Forty suspected cases of coronavirus have been reported in Ghana since the outbreak but have all tested negative of the deadly virus.

“As yet, we’ve not found any Ghanaian that has contracted this disease either in-country or even outside country,” Mr Agyeman-Manu said, and assured that the government and its development partners were working hard to prevent Ghana from recording a coronavirus case.

He stated that a holding room has been identified at country’s main entry point, the Kotoka International Airport, to use for suspected cases.

The Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge) and the Tema General Hospital have already been designated as treatment and isolation centres, but the Minister said all the five teaching and 10 regional hospitals in the country have the potential to manage covid-19 cases.

These facilities, he noted, have been engaged by the Health Ministry “to test how ready they are for any eventuality”.

Also, case management teams have been trained.

A total of 5,000 PPEs have been procured and distributed to all regions and major health facilities and points of entry in the country as well as some selected health facilities. More are being procured by government to help protect our frontline workers.

More reagents and primer are also being procured for the two health research centres at the forefront of testing for coronavirus cases in the country.

Meanwhile, Mr Agyemang-Manu has announced renovation work on the Debrah Ward at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra is being fast-tracked by the government due to the coronavirus emergency.

The World Bank, he said, is supporting government to complete work on the 25-bed capacity facility with modern facilities to be used for infectious diseases in the country.

“This should be ready in three weeks. We started renovating the Debrah Ward sometime last year as part of our preparations for eventually setting up our CDC in Ghana.

“We were supposed to complete in June but because of this emergency, we are working with the World Bank to accelerate the rate at which we want to complete the Debrah Ward,” he stated.

Mr Agyemang-Manu said government has already developed emergency response policy on the CDC but yet to be approved and rolled out.