15,000 may die of Covid-19 in Ghana – Presidential advisor

Ghana's model for coronavirus infections has projected that some 15,000 people die from the Coronavirus, a Presidential Advisor on Health has disclosed.

Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare explained that the projection is based on a baseline projection that 10% of Ghanaians are likely to test positive for the virus before infections peak.

In an interview on Joy News’ current affairs programme PM Express on Tuesday evening, the former director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said out of the 10% projected infections, majority of the cases are likely to be asymptomatic.

“We expect that about 10% of the population may be infected and out of the 10% of the population 80% may not show signs or symptoms at all and 5% of them will be very ill, that is the projection,” he said.

Out of this 5% of persons projected to be critically ill, 10% may die, the Presidential Advisor said.

He has since clarified that his comments were based on a World Health Organization hypothesis of African countries that do not put in place any measures to curb the spread of the disease.

"I want to make it very short, that, It is not true that Ghana will have 3 million people infected before we reach the peak, we would never see that," Dr Nsiah Asare said.