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Seth Acheampong, Eastern Regional Minister
Eastern Regional Minister Seth Acheampong called on all municipal and district assemblies (MDAs) in the region to apply COVID-19 preventive protocols to them for maximum public safety.
He said the wearing of face masks, the provision of hand washing stations at all points of view and social distancing protocols had all been relaxed and should be reviewed and enforced.
Mr Acheampong gave the directive at the Regional Public Health Emergency Committee on COVID-19 meeting in Koforidua to discuss strategies to control the recent peak in the region.
He said despite restrictions on social gatherings, public buy-in was a challenge and urged MDAs to step up enforcement.
Mr. Acheampong, chairman of the regional security committee and committee, said, based on staggering statistics and concerns raised by frontline health workers, “REGSEC will not hesitate to bring security to enforce if necessary for the benefit of all. “
He said he had personally observed that pubs and nightclubs were operating without regard to any of the preventive measures and instructed the assemblies to step up their enforcement to contain the measure.
Dr Winfred Ofosu, regional health director for the east, said there was a spike in cases in the region and therefore the law needed to be enforced to bring the trend down.
He said the daily average of cases had increased dramatically “and the fear is that very soon health systems and facilities will be overwhelmed, so we need to act quickly to ensure that protocols are adhered to.”
According to him, the situation was worrying and therefore “all strategies must be deployed to lower the peak and the first step was to apply the restrictions to get people to comply while we also look at the other measures”.
He said the regional hospital had a PCR and antigen expert who made testing and treatment swift, but there were issues with contact tracing in terms of logistics to ensure that those who were tracked down and tested positive were in full compliance with established protocols.
Dr John Ekow Otoo, deputy regional director of public health giving the statistics, said that between January and the first week of August, the Region had registered 2,555 cases, inter alia; 1,123 health workers who were infected and lost six health workers.
He said all 33 MDAs had recorded cases, with the municipalities of New Juaben South and Lower Manya Krobo leading the rankings, while Kwahu Afram Plains South had the fewest recorded cases.
He explained that Koforidua regional hospital and Atua government hospital in Odumase were referral centers.
He said that due to the increase in the number of cases, health facilities and logistics were overloaded, especially the EPP, and called on the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) to support them.
He noted that another challenge to contain the pandemic in the region was the non-adherence of contacts found and isolated in homes and also called for some kind of support for these people to isolate themselves for the benefit of all. .
According to Dr Otoo, the Region lacked isolation centers, which is why contacts who were found and tested positive were isolated at their homes, but did not follow stay-at-home guidelines.
He called on the committee to come up with concrete strategies on how to create isolation centers in different districts.
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