35 Ghanaian deportees test positive for coronavirus
Thirty-five out of 231 Ghanaian deportees from Kuwait, who arrived in the country a week ago, have tested positive for COVID-19.
The figure represents 15% of the deportees tested the second time for coronavirus.
The Ghana Health Service announced the figure in its latest update on the country’s covid-19 situation.
In the first test conducted in the Gulf state before, they were flown to Ghana, none of the deportees had the virus, which has so far infected more than 7,800 Ghanaians.
But when they arrived in Ghana on May 23, the health authorities conducted a new test on them, before they sent them into a 14-day mandatory quarantine to insulate the country from another wave of imported cases.
The decision has yielded positive results.
With the country expected to open its airspace to dozens of flights in the coming week to bring back stranded Ghanaians abroad, the test result from the returnees validates the government’s covid-19 strategy for those coming from outside the country.
At the Thursday, May 28, 2020 press briefing, the Director of Public Health of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Badu Sarkodie, hinted that some of the deportees had tested positive but fell short of giving figures.
“We haven’t finished with the testing of all the people that we took samples from. There are indications that some of them are positive …We will follow up on this and when we have the full report, we will share this report appropriately,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the first batch of Ghanaians being evacuated from other countries are expected to arrive in the country on June 2, from Nigeria.