Coronavirus: Don’t evacuate Ghanaian students in Wuhan back home – GHS
The director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Badu Sarkodie, has kicked against calls to evacuate Ghanaian students in Wuhan back home to Ghana.
This comes a day after the students made a passionate appeal to the government to evacuate them from the epicentre of the coronavirus in Wuhan to Ghana over fears of being infected.
Ghanaian students in China demand evacuation back home over outbreak of coronavirus
But speaking in an interview on Accra based Starr FM which was monitored by theghanareport.com, Dr Badu Sarkodie said the move must be critically looked at.
“If they are in the area where the virus has been detected, I will suggest we don’t permit these students to move out because that area is on lockdown in China.
“But if they are not at those areas then let’s use the various means including Immigration procedures and the various health processes to deal with it so that it does not affect anyone,” he said.
Dr Sarkodie also explained that several measures have been instituted to deal with the virus should it be detected in Ghana.
According to him, personnel are being trained whiles detectors have been installed at various entry points into the country to quickly identify persons with the virus.
The death toll from the new coronavirus now stands at 106, as cases of new infections have almost doubled in a day, Chinese authorities said.
The number of total confirmed cases in China rose to 4,515 as of 27 January, up from 2,835 a day earlier.
Travel restrictions have been tightened and wearing masks in public is now mandatory in some cities.
The city of Wuhan is at the epicentre of the outbreak but it has spread across China and internationally.
Wuhan, and the Hubei province it is located in, are already effectively in a lockdown with transport restrictions in and out of the area.
On Monday, authorities in Beijing confirmed a 50-year-old man had died – the first fatality in the Chinese capital from the virus.