The famous Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop of Cape Coast, Most Reverend Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle has reportedly been hospitalised after getting infected with the deadly COVID-19 disease.
He is reportedly receiving treatment at the Ga East Treatment and Isolation Centre in Accra. He confirmed this himself in a personal short video he shared on social media.
“I just thought of sending this message out to those of you who are my loved ones. At least it will let you know, I have survived it for five days, and therefore I encourage anybody who is afflicted not to be afraid because, yes COVID-19 is real but healing is equally real if we will do the best”, the Catholic Priest said.
“My advice is what I call the three Ps; Prayer, Protocols and Prayer and you can add two more to it- protocols and prayer, so it becomes five Ps”, he admonished.
Palmer-Buckle joins the growing list of influential Ghanaians who have been infected by the deadly disease, a number of them have already died, with rumours emerging that another important person at the Jubilee House may have died from the disease.
Ghana is battling an aggressive second wave of COVID-19 which has been chiefly facilitated by politicians who threw caution to the wind during the campaign season at the latter part of 2020.
The examples set by the politicians reportedly influenced the reckless abandon of citizens during the Christmas festivities, leading to an explosion of infection from a rampaging new strain of the disease allegedly imported from the United Kingdom.
The West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) at the University of Ghana revealed that the new COVID-19 strain from the United Kingdom B.1.1.7 is currently driving new local infections in Ghana.
“Data shows clearly that B.1.1.7 (first reported in the UK) is now the predominant strain driving local transmission in Ghana,” Director of the WACCBIP, Dr. Gordon Awandare said in a Facebook post.
B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2, is one of a few mutated strains of the virus which scientists say could be more contagious and is fast-spreading in about 70 countries worldwide.
Meanwhile, Ghana’s active cases of COVID-19 has been driven to 6,095 from barely 2,000 active cases some three weeks ago.
Nine more people have died from the disease, bringing the total tally of casualties to 449 with cumulative infections standing at 70,046. So far, 63,502 of the numbers have recovered and have been discharged from hospitals across the country.