Government has wiped off relevant information on Ghana’s coronavirus situation from the official website launched to update Ghanaians on the outbreak of the virus which has so far infected over 1,000 people.
The portal was introduced by the Ministry of Information on March 15; just three days after Ghana recorded its first two positive cases, to provide timely and relevant information to the public every six hours.
Two days after widespread claims that the government has been massaging the release of confirmed covid-19 cases in the country, some key data on the website which puts Ghana’s covid-19 situation into perspective have all been removed.
On Thursday afternoon, 3news.com detected the covid-19 homepage which sits on the Ghana Health Service official website, has been wiped almost clean with only the total number of confirmed cases in the country showing.
Information on the regional distribution of the recorded cases in Ghana as well as the statements that come with each update have all been removed from the homepage of the website.
Also wiped off from the site is the controversial line graph which some critics used as the basis to accuse government of massaging figures on confirmed cases being released.
The number of deaths recorded, those under quarantine as well as those who have recovered from the virus and the others responding to treatment or critically ill which were previously displayed broadly on the homepage have all been removed.
The Ghana map which displayed the cases recorded in each region has also been removed.
For the past 12 hours, visitors to the website are greeted with only the total number of cases recorded in Ghana and a faintly scripted notice saying “updates coming soon”. It is unclear how long the website will remain in its current state.
Reason for the removal of the critical information from the website is also unknown as government has not yet commented on the issue.
Initially, the government started by sharing more information:
#COVID2019Ghana Update pic.twitter.com/mOB22heKiN
— Ministry of Information (@moigovgh) April 7, 2020
Then they reduced it to this:
Covid19 Update pic.twitter.com/OStlVGd5oW
— Ministry of Information (@moigovgh) April 12, 2020
And now it’s just this:
Covid19 Update pic.twitter.com/luBklfY4uE
— Ministry of Information (@moigovgh) April 22, 2020
You be the judge…