The Ghana Health Service (GHS) said the active cases were in four regions, namely, Greater Accra, Ashanti, Upper East and Bono, with majority in the Greater Accra Region.

According to the GHS, the development was an indication that the national response founded on preventive protocols and vaccination was yielding the desired result.

At the Minister’s Press Briefing in Accra on April 27, 2022, the Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said currently infections had dropped to less than 20 new cases.

“We have no severe or critical case currently. Cases at the airport have also declined significantly. We have also administered more than 14 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.

He said the country had so far recorded over 161,172 cases, 159,679 recoveries and 1,445 deaths in all.

Call to action

Dr Kuma-Aboagye said the feat was a call to action on adherence to the preventive protocols

He, therefore, reiterated his call on the public not to mistake the lifting of the COVID-19 mandatory restrictions for an annulment of the safety protocol.

The director-general explained that COVID-19 still lingered, and although the country had recorded a significant decline, abandoning the safety protocol and vaccination could result in a retrogression of the strides made.

He explained that not making the wearing of face masks mandatory did not mean the safety protocol was no longer necessary.

Rather, it meant that with the strides made so far, people should be able to willingly take responsibility for their health by willingly adhere to the safety protocol and getting vaccinated.

Vaccination helping

He emphasised that the wearing of face masks, in addition to vaccination and other safety protocol would protect dear ones who had not been vaccinated yet or were not eligible, such as people below 15 years.

“The vaccination is helping so much in the national COVID-19 response, and it is an undeniable fact that vaccination will yield maximum impact if used together with the preventive protocols such as hand washing, wearing of face masks and adherence to social distancing,” he emphasised.

He said aside from boosting the immune system to fight the disease and other health benefits, vaccination was also a way to stop or limit mutations.

Post COVID-19 complications

Additionally, the director-general advised people to be mindful of the risk of post-COVID-19 complications, such as injury to internal organs such as the pancreas, the lungs, the kidneys and the brain, medically referred to as long COVID.

“People, particularly the vaccinated, should not take the safety protocol for granted just because they are not at risk of death or severe sickness or because the wearing of face masks is no longer mandatory. This is because the implications of post-COVID-19 complications or long COVID could be dire,” he said.