Ghana’s share of the millions of medical supplies donated to Africa by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has arrived at the Kotoka International Airport to support the country in its fight against the deadly coronavirus.
An Ethiopian Airlines carrying the consignment made up of face masks, test kits, protective gears and face shields among others, touched down in Accra Wednesday morning from Addis Ababa where the entire supplies for were initially flown to.
Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu who received the consignment said they will immediately be transported and distributed to health facilities and frontline staff across the country.
“…All the items that we have will be pushed as quickly as possible to areas where we need these things most,” he assured.
He said once the supplies are distributed and health workers supplied with the protective gears they need, “the doctors and our health workers will have enormous numbers that wouldn’t scare anyone to continue to work to save our country”.
Ma who is the co-founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, announced last week that his foundation will donate 20,000 testing kits, 100,000 masks and 1,000 protective suits to each African country to help the fight against coronavirus.
“As members of the global community, it will be irresponsible of us to sit on the fence, panic, ignore facts, or fail to act. We need to take action now,” Mr Ma said in a statement to announce the gesture.
Receiving Ghana’s consignment, Mr Agyemang-Manu expressed gratitude to Mr Ma for the support, saying “On behalf of the President and the people of this country, we are very grateful to Jack Ma foundation”.
“The president will actually do a personal letter to Jack Ma to give thanks for this gesture,” he added.
He also thanked the Chinese Embassy in Ghana, the Ethiopian Prime Minister and the Ethiopian Airline for all their support and role in getting the supplies to Ghana at a time the country has recorded spike in its confirmed cases of the virus.
Ghana has currently recorded 53 confirmed cases with two deaths.
The highest ever case was recorded in a day was on Tuesday with 26 new cases, all of who were Ghanaians mandatorily quarantined by the government upon their return from trips abroad.
The 26 were part of 1,030 Ghanaians who have mandatorily been quarantined at different locations in Accra by the government since arriving in the country from midnight of Sunday, March 22 following the shutdown of the country’s entry points to non-citizens.
Health personnel have so far managed to take samples from 844 of the total number of people quarantined of which results for 510 have been processed and released.
In respect of contact tracing, a total of 829 contacts have been identified and are being tracked. One of the contacts who developed symptoms, tested positive for the virus.
By 3news.com|Ghana