The Ghanaian Parliament has warned Members of Parliament against handshakes in a sweeping move to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus (Covid-19) among the lawmakers.
The Speaker of Parliament, Mike Oquaye in Parliament today, March 12, 2020, cautioned MPs to stop exchanging pleasantries with handshakes.
“Transmission has been identified particularly through handshaking and using the hands on the face. Sanitizers have been put at vantage points. We [MPs] need to keep sanitizing our hands,” the Speaker said.
Already, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia is championing an unconventional alternative to handshakes-Elbow bumps.
The Vice President has been seen in viral videos and pictures elbow bumping with dignitaries in the past couple of days.
Meanwhile, latest data shows that as at Wednesday, March 11, 2020, officials at the Ghana Health Services had recorded approximately 57 suspected cases of Covid-19, curiously, tests on all these cases have reportedly proven negative.
“Our country’s two main research institutions, the Noguchi Memorial Institute and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research, which has the capacity to investigate and confirm or otherwise suspected cases of Coronavirus infections have been very supportive in this regard. So far, they have found that the fifty-seven (57) suspected cases, as of Wednesday, 11th March, have proved negative,” President Nana Akufo-Addo said when he addressed the nation on Wednesday, 11th March 2020.
The President also announced that an emergency fund of US$100 million has been released for the government to fight the Covid-19 which is running riot across the world.
As at the last count, over 125,000 people have been infected-mostly from China and about 4,000 of them have been killed within the past four months of the outbreak.