The death toll from COVID-19 infected persons have shot up to five, in the Western Region of Ghana. The region as considered a third hot spot or epicenter of the novel coronvirus in the country, has so far recorded a total of Two thousand, two hundred and eighteen (2,218) cases of the disease.
The good news amid this unfortunate development is the fact that, out of ten thousand, eight hundred and ninety-three (10,893) tests taken on samples collected, two thousand, two hundred and eighteen (2,218) came out positive, the remainder (8,675) were all negative.
Even with the 2,218 positive cases, a total of 2,183 have recovered and or discharged from the various isolation centers in the region. This means that the total number of active cases, is thirty (30).
Pending Cases ballooning
Health Experts including the Regional Health Directorate fear the region could be hit with a much more overwhelming situation as samples taken of both suspected infected persons and contacts of COVID-19 patients, have taken so much a time to be tested. The load of cases pending in the region keeps rising by each day. Per the surveillance report issued by the Regional Health Directorate, total cases pending test stands at 4,092.
According to the Directorate, some of these samples have been pending for about a month. For such delays, and given a situation where the Testing Laboratory in Takoradi is no longer functional, most of these samples risk being contaminated. More threatening and disastrous is that the region does not have enough facilities to quarantine suspected infected persons.
“Should any of their results come out positive, they might have already infected several people” a source at the Testing Lab indicated.