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Environmental health officials in the Greater Accra region have buried six bodies infected with Covid-19 at Awodome cemetery.
Although officials expected eight bodies, members of two families did not show up at the very first public funeral for Covid-19 since the third wave hit Ghana.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has recorded a total of 945 deaths since Covid-19 struck the country.
Talk with JoyNews‘Maame Esi Thompson, shortly after the funeral, Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) Environmental Health Director Joseph Asitanga cautioned the public against what he observed as a disregard for Covid protocols -19, reminding that the virus is real.
“I want to tell all Ghanaians that the Covid is real,” he said.
Five of the bodies were from the Greater Accra Regional Hospital and one from Ga East Hospital.
The director of health said burial protocols require that “when the person dies and we are informed that it is Covid, the details of the deceased person are recorded in our office and then we start the process.
“Keep in mind that the law does not allow us to donate the bodies to family members, so when a person dies, we give the family a lot of advice.
According to him, education is provided for the family “and we tell them that it is a pandemic, and therefore, a pandemic is managed by the government so we help to manipulate the body.
“We will do everything possible to help rest the person so that at the morgue level the bodies are kept in a different session from other bodies.”
He further explained that in addition to disinfecting the body for burial, “we are disinfecting the whole area, the vehicle that will transport the body, the coffin, even the grave.
“The people who have to do the manipulation are adequately protected with PPE, you media people, before you have access to come and join the program, we have to protect you.
He added: “After finishing the coating [of the grave] we will disinfect the whole place again before we leave.
Meanwhile, some aggrieved families of the deceased disagreed that their loved ones died from Covid-19.
“She did not die of Covid because if it did, her children who treated her in the hospital would have been quarantined,” one said. JoyNews.
He asked: “Why then let the children walk around in public, then we would all be affected by the virus, so if we behave like that in this world, it is very painful.”
Another relative said: “We lost her about 10 days ago, I think. My sister did not contract Covid-19 because if it was the case, all those around her before her disappearance would have been isolated.
According to him, her brother was diagnosed with kidney failure and my brother died, “you said you were taking her to a special ward, just a few hours you said she had contracted Covid.”
Mr Asitanga however refuted the claim, “It pays no doctor, doctors do not receive any reward for labeling a family member as a Covid body, and we are the last end to resolve the issue.”
He said that until the medical report indicates that one person has died from Covid, “we have no hands in the body.”
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