The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), has disclosed that 10 persons who contracted COVID-19 within the last two weeks in the municipality have died.
The Assembly has also recorded over 200 cases at different treatment centres between 1st to 13th July 2021.
It has thus entreated all persons within the area to as a matter of urgency adhere to the COVID-19 safety protocols.
Speaking to Citi News, the Public Relations Officer of the KMA, Henrietta Afia Konadu Aboagye, said the new Delta variant was detected in the metropolis in December 2021.
She also called on various stakeholders to intensify education and sensitization of the COVID-19 virus.
“After the festive season, we realized a lot of people were coming in with a lot of cases, but later we realised that people were coming in with the new Delta variant. The Public Health Committee that is helping the Assembly with the outbreak has recorded over 200 cases.”
“This number is too huge for this short period; so we are drawing the attention of the public not to relax with the protocols so that we are able to curtail the infection rate”, she added.
Meanwhile, officials of the Ghana Health Service are holding a crisis management meeting on COVID-19 in the region.
Citi News has learnt that health directors and other officials of the health management body nationwide are present at the meeting.
Statistics available from the Ghana Health Service as of Monday, July 19, 2021, show that the country has a total of 2,858 active cases.
Out of this number of cases, 382 are new. The Ashanti Region’s cumulative cases are 16,889.
Ghana’s cumulative confirmed cases are 98,817 with 95,147 recoveries and 812 deaths.
There has been a steady rise in the number of active COVID-19 cases in recent days, after it dropped below 500 a few weeks ago.
The country recently recorded the Delta variant of the virus within the community after it was initially said to have been detected in some travellers and contained at the Kotoka International Airport.
Recently, the National Commission for Civic Education(NCCE), also asked the police to enforce strict adherence to the COVID-19 protocols to prevent the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19 strain, Delta.
“The Commission urges the Ghana Police Service to enforce strict adherence to the COVID-19 prevention protocols to curb the spread of the Delta variant,” the NCCE said in a statement.
COVID-19: Revise vaccination plan to curb rising cases – Akandoh to government
Meanwhile, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, is urging the government to vary its vaccination strategy amid rising cases of COVID-19.
According to him, the government’s unfocused vaccination plan and the refusal to continue the public testing regime provides no hope for the country’s fight against COVID-19.
“As I stand here as the Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, if you ask me when we are going to roll out the next vaccination plan, the answer is I don’t know, and the worst of it all is that we have stopped doing testing. Now, if you have a positive case, it takes you the patient to go and test your relatives. The only way we can arrest the rise in the active cases is [through] vaccination,” he said.