Coronavirus Scare As Ghana Gives Chinese Entry Without Visa

Since January 19th, 2020, Chinese nationals had been granted entry into Ghana without visa, this comes almost a month after the deadly Coronavirus outbreak in China had kicked in0since late December 2019.

A January 28, letter signed by the Deputy by the Comptroller-General of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) Baba Asare reinforced the travel arrangement with China, saying officers should facilitate the travel of citizens of China to Ghana.

“Effective 19th January 2020, nationals holding valid Ordinary Passport of the People’s Republic of China, and citizens of the Republic or Armenia shall be exempted from visa requirements for entry into, exit from or transit through and stay in the territory of the other contracting party [Ghana] for a period of not more than ninety (90) days from the date of entry,” the letter read.

Incidentally, since the coronavirus 2019-nCoV became a global epidemic, several countries have banned flights to and from China. Ghana has refused to announce any such ban, except to order Ghanaian students studying in China not to return home now because of fears of serving as conduits for the coronavirus to Ghana.

The coronavirus which can be transmitted from human to human and through aerosolised mediums such as sneezing etc., was discovered in a town called Wuhan in China. The disease has so far reportedly infected over 50,000 people and has scored high mortality rate than any other recent deadly killer flu infection.

About 1000 people have reportedly died from the disease.