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According to the Minister, the character of some Ghanaians who have begun to point fingers at families and people with COVID-19 or who have been quarantined as a result of having contact with the infected persons shouldn’t be encouraged.
He stressed that the Coronavirus is not a ”death sentence” though Ghana has recorded eight (8) death cases associated with the disease.
”Unfortunately, we have had eight (8) persons who had underlying conditions who have passed on but it’s not a death sentence. People can be assisted with treatment and can recover”, he stated.
The Information Minister feared that if the stigma continues, it may deter people from testing for the virus and as a result encourage more infections in the country.
Delivering an update on COVID-19 at a press briefing in Accra which included the Ministry of Energy, Hon. Oppong Nkrumah advised Ghanainas to desist from stigmatizing or humiliating any person who gets infected by the virus.
”If the levels of stigma associated with COVID-19 continue, we fear that people may go underground. People who have conditions who need to step forward so that we can diagnose them and treat them, they may go underground. People may not disclose their conditions as they ought to. Communities will continue rejecting offers by well-intended people to make available Isolation or potential treatment centers”, he said.
Ghana has so far recorded 641 cases of the novel Coronavirus. This figure is out of 50,719 samples tested for the virus as part of government’s enhanced measures aimed at fighting the pandemic in the country.
Eighty-three (83) people have fully recovered from the novel COVID-19 with seventeen (17) more who have tested negative to undergo their second test in order to be officially join the recovery cases.
