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Opinions of Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Columnist: Dauda Ali Ayamba

The Vietnam way of containing coronavirus in Ghana

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Vietnam which is one the Asian countries sharing a border with China, where the Corona Virus had its first hit. The distance between these two countries is as close as 2,600Km. Vietnam recorded its first case on the 20/01/ 2020 from a 66 years old man who is a tourist from Wuhan.

They quickly launched a nationwide coronavirus prevention system after they had their 2nd confirmed case of COVID-19 of an infected father marked (F1) and a son marked (F0) as means of tracking and identification even the patient decides to abscond.

In order to ensure the situation is not escalated, the government formed a committee known as COVID-19 Prevention National Steering Committee headed by the Deputy Prime Minister. They are tasked to map-up and coordinate all measures possible to contain the situation.

They never appointed any musician as an ambassador to COVID-19 unlike what we could possible experience in this our country where ambassadors are going to be appointed without any impact on the fight.

The committee is comprised of fifty(50) members from the ministry of health, government officials, tourism ministry, City Mayors, the police and defence department of Vietnam, the traffic control team.

All borders to the neighbouring countries were closed, airports and ports closed down just so they are able to contain the situation.

It was followed by an awareness creation to follow the precautionary measures by World Organization Organisation and with activation of text messages to all mobile phone users in the country every morning to remind their citizens to be careful with their lives and not forget with simply following the precautionary measures.

They banned all people within the age of 60 above not move an inch outside of their homes or better still ensure there is properly fixed nose mask, and other protective gears to prevent the infections since the survival of the aged, people with blooded related diseases, heart diseases are susceptible serious complications when infected with the Virus or may even easily lead to death.

They worked and kept to their promises not to record any death having discovered confirmed cases of 94 people without any death and 25 have since been treated and discharged.

Because they were committed and are up to the task, they mobilised 90,000 medical Doctors which is estimated to be 100 times the total number of medicals Doctors we have in Ghana here, with 120,000 nurses, 200 thousand troops and an amazing number of 100 students volunteer students across the country, collectively from all aspect of their field studies. The Slogan for the fight against the devastating and noble COVID-19 is “ Anti-epidemic Against the Enemy”

The isolation centres include students dormitories, barracks, and with 90 standard designated hospitals for the treatment of those who would be infected. Stadiums were also prepared as places to host about 10,000 people in the worst-case scenario. It was a full preparation and not to be overwhelmed and lose focus when it becomes severe.

STRUCTURE OF THE FIGHT IN TRACKING INFECTED PEOPLE AND PREVENTION OF ESCALATION.

If a person is identified to be infected, medical teams are readily available to transport that person to the nearest isolation centre for treatment, and not more than 24hours, the area or town in which that person is living having been confirmed to have the Virus, the whole community would be policed and militarized until after 14 days no one moves out.

Their feeding is been catered by the state and both the military and the police would cook to serve the entire area for the 14 days period where it is either confirmed whether others are affected by the infected person. The most interesting thing is that, every infected person has a unique mark starting from F0, F1, F2...Which is to ensure no one escapes from any of the isolation centres where they are treated.

The source said the government is raising about $10billion dollars which is to be supported by individuals citizens and the business community in the country to purchase all medicinal supplies and foodstuffs and other expenditure even if the case becomes worse which they don’t anticipate though.

All businesses that are affected as a result of the Virus are exempted from paying taxes, and postponement of all forms of taxes, reduction of interest Rate. They are hailed as the best country to have handled this issue tactfully and successful even though they still have 69 cases who are under treatment.

They are also focusing of adding additional quarantine centres that take to about 70,000 people and monitor citizens from Japan, England, South Korea, Italy, France and America who comes into their country.

They are able to set-up a target with a level 1. Not more than 100 should be infected with the COVID-19. Level2- if they are not able to control that, the next action is to ensure control of the situation not to exceed between 100-500 infections. Levle3- between 500 to 5000. Level4- 4000 to 10,000 and the highest been 10,000 to 100,000.

So far, they are able to contain the situation in the first level with 94 infected persons and 25 have been recovered and are discharged. They have a population of over 94million people.

The questions here are: what is our patriotism level, as leaders, students and businessmen? How prepared and committed are we to fighting this common course? We talk plenty with less work done.

Every Television and Radio station is dominated with discussions and debates as to who did what and who didn’t do what, even more than the information that is supposed to be given to the people to reduce the infection rate.

What’s our Doctor to patient ratio? We are all not ready to the fight. Our focus and fate hangs on the hands of God, but will God just accept us just like that without us doing the best before His intervention?

Remember He(God) doesn’t hate the worse hid countries, they underestimated the impact of the COVID-19 just like we are trying to do now.