Ghana’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic continues to attract global acclaim as nations intensify their search for solutions to deal with the pandemic.
The Washington Post, the renowned American publication, is the latest to applaud Ghana for the decisive way it has responded to the crisis since it broke out earlier in the year.
In article titled “When it comes to coronavirus response, superpowers may need to study smaller nations,” The Washington Post names Ghana among smaller nations whose Coronavirus responses have been exemplary.
The Washington Post highlights Ghana’s aggressive and effective testing regime as the reason for identifying many cases, and also commended Ghana’s front-line health workers for helping the country “respond effectively.”
The article also mentioned that the World Health Organisation is studying some of Ghana’s Coronavirus techniques, including the potentially time-saving practice of ‘pool testing’, in which multiple blood samples are tested together and processed separately only if a positive result is found.
The WashingtonPost describe Ghana’s efforts as:
“Experts worry sub-Saharan Africa could be among the world’s worst-hit by the pandemic. But more than three months in, some African nations appear to be faring better in some ways than their North American and European peers. In Ghana, a West African nation of some 30 million people, the government has had more than 161,000 people tested, the region’s second highest rate after South Africa.
Ghana found plenty of cases — with over 5,600 infections and 28 deaths confirmed. But extensive testing allowed the country to track individual outbreaks, including one at a fish-processing plant where one person infected 533 others. The country’s corps of community health workers help it respond effectively. The WHO is studying some of Ghana’s techniques, including the potentially time saving practice of “pool testing,” in which multiple blood samples are tested together and processed separately only if a positive result is found.
Osman Dar, the director of the Global Health Program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, said Ghana has benefited from its demographics — the country is overwhelmingly young, with just 3 percent of the population more than 65 years old. But Ghanaian officials were also “quite proactive in using their own budget to get a grip on the outbreak,” he said, drawing from a government emergency fund rather than waiting for international aid.
Other African countries acted decisively too. South Africa has mobilized thousands of nurses, while Senegal quickly went to work on $1 diagnostic kits that can detect the novel coronavirus in 10 minutes. Many countries acted concurrently to enact travel bans and curfews, under the guidance of Africa’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which has “played an important role in coordinating and having a consistent response,” said Dar.”