GHS amends COVID-19 policy
The Ghana Health Service has announced an amendment to the National COVID-19 Discharge Policy to conform with global modifications made by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) to its existing guidelines.
The adoption of the modification is to help reduce treatment cost and decongest treatment facilities.
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Policy amendment
Under the old policy, COVID-19 patients, after testing positive for the first time, remained in the treatment centre until a second test came out negative before they were allowed to go home within a minimum period of 21 days.
Addressing the weekly briefings on the national COVID-19 situation in Accra yesterday, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, said with the amendment, asymptomatic patients who were admitted would be made to go home after 14 days of treatment without a second test. However, the second test would be conducted on the patient from home.
Under the new plan, symptomatic patients will be on admission for 14 days and then discharged after a minimum of three days when they do not show any symptoms. Unlike in the old plan when they had to wait for the result of the second test, symptomatic patients can go home and be followed up for the second negative test from their homes.
The WHO, based on new studies, has established that after 10 days of the disease onset, the virus may not be infectious and asymptomatic patients are not active carriers so their chances of spread is extremely limited because they do not sneeze or cough.
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Cost
Dr Kuma Aboagye explained that the decision to amend the policy is to help manage the resources available for treating the rising number of patients.
“Initially, because the numbers were few, the old discharge protocol was an adequate policy but the increase in the number of cases, now we are talking about 12,000 plus, has brought to the fore some challenges but not peculiar to Ghana.
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“The increasing workload due to asymptomatic patients just staying in the hospitals waiting for their second negative test, the cost of feeding them is not becoming helpful to national and global response, hence the modification,” he said.
He said 146 patients had been followed up and on the average, they all tested negative 14 days after their samples had been taken and that made the new policy worthwhile.
Dr Kuma Aboagye explained that being discharged from the treatment centre did not mean one had recovered but was an indication that a person had gone through treatment after testing positive and had tested first negative, was well and awaiting the second negative result to be declared recovered.
He said people who were discharged, therefore, posed no threat of transmission to the public and, therefore, instead of allowing them to be at the treatment centre and be taken care of at the cost of the state, they would be allowed to go home and be followed up there for the second test.
No congestion
However, Dr Kuma Aboagye was quick to clarify that the amendment was never due to congestion in treatment facilities, indicating that the country had never reached its full treatment-bed capacity of 700 beds.
He said the amendment was to help cut social cost to the patient and national cost of feeding healthy people in treatment centres while they waited for their second negative test to be declared recovered and allow health professionals give more attention to the sick.
Speaking specifically to concerns of congestion at treatment centres in Kumasi, he said it was also the case of keeping people who had gone through treatment and tested their first negative and awaiting their second to be declared recovered and so under the current amendment, they would be discharged and followed up at home.
Enforcement of nose mask policy
The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, said with the coming into force of the Executive Instrument on the mandatory wearing of the mask, all regional and district coordinating councils were supposed to ensure strict adherence.
The Executive Instrument came into force on June 14, 2020.
“Government also observed that several regional and district councils were implementing the mandatory wearing of the mask.
“The wearing of the mask, we are told by the public health scientist that although, not a replacement for the other safety protocols, was a key way of breaking transmission or spread of COVID-19 and would only be effective if majority of the population adhere.
“So government hereby, reminds the RCCs and the DCCs that are yet to kick-start strict adherence to go full throttle to do so, with the executive instrument that has been issued to support the mandatory wearing of the mask,” he said.
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SHS reopening
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the government had been monitoring events regarding the opening of the tertiary institutions to final-year students and based on that would make further pronouncements on the reopening of school for final-year and Gold track SHS students scheduled for Monday.
He said preliminary reports from the tertiary institutions which reopened on June 15, for final-year students, indicated that they had put in place commendable measures to ensure the safety of students and staff.
“The government continues to observe activities on campuses as it continues to engage with other education cohorts on the reopening of the other institutions in the SHS category.
“They are expected to be next and we expect to make some more pronouncement on the directive by early next week when the full data on how the directive went with the tertiary cohort,” he said.
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National update
At the briefing, the update on the current case count was given as 12,929 out of a total of 261,319 tests.
Out of the number, 4,468 had recovered, leaving the number of active cases at 8,395.
Fourteen people are reported to be in severe condition while the death toll stands at 66.