Dr Timothy S. Letsa, Volta Regional Director of Health Services, has disclosed that the region has in the past six weeks been experiencing an upsurge in the number of COVID 19 cases similar to the rest of the country.

He said the cumulative case count had moved from 2,738 on July 10, 2021, to 4,175 on August 23 accounting for 35 per cent of all cases recorded in the region since the inception of the pandemic 17 months ago.

"The Region presently has recorded the sixth-highest number of cumulative cases in the country after Greater Accra, Ashanti, Western, Eastern and Central Regions."

Dr Letsa, in a signed press release copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), disclosed that the region also accounted for 50 mortalities which was approximately five per cent of the country's 982 mortalities.

He said in terms of active cases, the current active case count of 77 ranked the Volta Region eighth behind seven other regions in the country.

Dr Letsa noted that the region recorded its first nine cases of COVID-19 on April 12, 2020, and as at August 23, this year, 4,176 cases which accounted for 3.6 per cent of Ghana's cumulative case count of 115, 525.

The Director noted that the region as part of efforts to mitigate the impact of the imminent third wave was part of the national strategy meeting organised by the Ghana Health Service on July 20, this year.

He said, "at the meeting, the national COVID-19 technical team assessed Volta Region's response and shared recommendations to enhance the capacity of the region to deal with the upsurge."

Dr Letsa said the commitment of the Government of Ghana towards ensuring the health and safety of all Ghanaians had also been abundantly demonstrated in the Volta Region and added that "with the support of the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service, and key stakeholders in the Volta Region, considerable capacity has been built progressively over the past one and half years."

He said some new developments included strengthening the case management capacity with the establishment of five treatment centres to strategically serve the various zones within the Region adding that the Ho Teaching Hospital currently managed the 40-bed capacity Regional Treatment Centre.

The Director also mentioned the establishment of five testing centres in the region namely the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) COVID-19 testing centre being the primary testing centre at a total capacity running 1,000 samples a day.

He said the UHAS Centre was also one of the few testing sites conducting genomic sequencing tests on Covid-19 samples in the country.

Other developments include building staff capacity across all thematic areas, including case management, surveillance, and risk communication in all the 18 districts, the steady supply of logistics to health facilities and the region benefitting from the construction of three new ICU facilities scheduled for completion by the end of the year.

He firmly assured the public and specifically the inhabitants of the region that the health service was working with all stakeholders to implement all available interventions to help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus while cautioning against misinformation of the general public on pertinent health issues.

Dr Letsa said everyone had a responsibility to stay safe by adhering to the time-tested protocols of wearing face masks appropriately, social distancing and regular hand washing.