Covid-19: Health Minister discharged from hospital and continuing treatment at home

The Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has been discharged from the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC) where he was receiving treatment for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Speaking at a press briefing Monday evening, the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah disclosed that he [Nkrumah] has spoken to Mr Agyeman-Manu and he [Agyeman-Manu] told him he was currently responding to treatment at home.

Earlier in a post on Facebook on Monday morning, Mr Agyeman-Manu expressed appreciation to President Akufo-Addo for his well-wishes after he was infected with Covid-19 in the line of duty and was hospitalised last week.

“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the President and all Ghanaians for your well wishes and prayers. By the grace of God, I’m responding to treatment,” he said in the Facebook post.

Read also: Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu responding to Covid-19 treatment

Background

President Akufo-Addo during his 11th address to the Nation on the fight against Covid-19 confirmed that the Minister of Health had been infected with the disease and wished him a speedy recovery.

“Let us wish our hardworking Minister for Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, MP for Dormaa Central, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty, and is in a stable condition,” the President urged.

Frontliner

The minister, one of the key men at the forefront in Ghana’s fight against Covid-19, has not been seen in public since the regular Minister’s Media Briefing on the Covid-19 last held on May 28.

Since then, no briefing had been held and the situation had given rise to speculations that he had tested positive for Covid-19

However, the Ministry of Health said the minister had taken some days off and was yet to resume work.

COVID-19 response team

Mr Agyeman-Manu, a leading member of Ghana’s COVID-19 response team, regularly addresses the Minister’s Media Briefing on the virus.

During those briefings, he constantly stressed the need for people to observe the safety and preventive protocols.

At the May 14 briefing, he called on Ghanaians to learn to live with the coronavirus because it had come to stay, stressing that the only way to keep the virus away was by observing the protocols.

“The last time I came here, I made some factual statement that the coronavirus had come to live with us. It will have nowhere to go and we’ll have to learn to live with it.

“There is no medication that we can take; there is no vaccine against the virus, but there are certain things we know we can do to protect ourselves,” he had emphasised.

Casualties

The confirmation of Mr Agyeman-Manu’s status makes him the third government official to have been confirmed to have contracted the infection, after the Metropolitan Chief Executive for Sekondi Takoradi, Mr Anthony Kobina Kurentsi Sam, and Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Papa Owusu-Ankomah.

Unfortunately, Mr Sam passed away at the UGMC last Friday, where he had been on admission, after being referred from the Effia Nkwanta Hospital.

He succumbed to the infection from an underlying health condition.

 Papa Owusu-Ankomah was the first high-profile government official to have confirmed testing positive to the infection.

He tested positive in London and was admitted at an ICU on April 10 but recovered and resumed work on May 12.

Last Thursday, the leadership of Parliament expressed concern over the refusal of some members to go into quarantine after testing positive.

The Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, had told the House that the medical team of COVID-19 was frustrated in getting those who had tested positive to go into self-isolation after they had communicated the outcome of their COVID-19 tests.

Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh 

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