Medical Reinforcement For Obuasi As City’s Infections Spiral Out Of Control

Coronavirus infections in the Obuasi Municipality, which has become the epicentre of the pandemic in the Ashanti Region has led to a decision by the Ashanti Regional  Health Directorate to send in extra health workers from Kumasi to reinforce the numbers.

Regional Health Director, Dr. Emmanuel Tenkorang, said the situation has become critical and created need for more contact tracing, treatment and care.

“We believe that with these reinforcement measures that have been taken by the Obuasi Municipal and Obuasi East, will help contain the infection at Obuasi, so as to cut the infection rate and save the people.

“The principle of tracing, testing, isolation and treatment will have to be intense so it means we have to send in more teams and this is exactly what we are doing,” he said in a radio interview monitored by WhatsUp News.

Obuasi has more than 50% of all coronavirus infections in the Ashanti Region. As of Tuesday, the Ashanti region had reported 307 new infections out of which 272 were from Obuasi.

The Municipality’s crisis situation is worsened by the fact that many people in the Municipality believe that the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax.

In a bid to get a handle on the spiralling infections, the Municipal Assembly has had to close down the two central markets in the Municipality because traders openly flouted social distancing protocols.

Obuasi’s coronavirus infections are reported to have started with a couple who work in one of the Central markets there. Without knowing that they were infected, they went about their activities, co-mingling with people.

“This was the case of a couple who were positive and had been working with people for the past two weeks with 17 of their immediate contacts being positive and that has led to the spread in the market” said Dr. Patrick Aboagye, Director General, Ghana Health Service.