Prof. Fred Newton Binka, a Professor of Epidemiology, has suggested to Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo to actively be at the frontline of Ghana’s fight against the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) before the pandemic gets out of hand.
He is therefore asking the president to assume that the country is currently at war with COVID-19, similar to the stance taken by the president of the United States of America Donald Trump.
Prof. Binka who is at the School of Public Health, University of Ghana was contributing to a roundtable discussion on Ghana’s surveillance, containment and treatment of coronavirus aired live on TV3 and other Media General platforms Monday afternoon.
Ghana has so far recorded 24 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with one death.
The theme for the discussion was: “Effective Strategies for the Surveillance, Containment and Treatment of the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana”.
Though President Akufo-Addo has constituted a team of experts and taken several other measures to contain the spread of the disease, Prof. Binka wants the president to do more.
“This Covid-19 thing is war. It cannot be dealt with like business as usual; dire measures have to be taken in dire times like this,” he asserted.
Prof. Binka pointed out that countries like Italy who were “stronger and better prepared” than Ghana have exhausted all their human efforts and have now turned to God to intervene as the disease bite hard.
“Let’s not wait till we get there,” he said, noting that when it gets serious “we cannot handle it.”
He therefore charged President Akufo-Addo to personally get onboard and “be on the line calling” presidents of countries with breakthrough test kits like Korea and other suppliers to come to the aid of Ghana.
He maintained that this is not the time for persons in authorities to sit and give command to get things done, rather, he said Ghana’s diplomatic missions should be tasked to go get whatever the country needs and bring them back home.
Source: 3news.com | Ghana