The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has said the third wave of coronavirus infections driven by the more transmissible delta variant is fast spreading across the country.
The Association’s General Secretary, Dr Justice Yankson, who made this known on Adom FM’s morning show Dwaso Nsem Friday, said the deployment of available vaccines in the country should be fast-tracked to curb the spread of infections.
According to him, the Delta variant, which is largely the cause of an increase in infections, comes along with a high viral load and a high burden of disease.
Dr Yankson said currently, health facilities and human resources handling moderate to severe COVID-19 cases are overstretched and the centres are becoming full.
He revealed that Covid-19 patients, who need to be transferred or referred for specialised treatment in well-resourced health facilities, sometimes die due to the unavailability of beds.
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“Our third wave, looking at how things are going, it would be worse than the first and second waves. It’s very high. We keep receiving increasing numbers and people keep dying too. Those getting infected are those who have not been vaccinated though those who have been vaccinated are also being infected,” he said.
An update of COVID-19 cases on the Ghana Health Service page showed that Ghana as of August 7, recorded 892 COVID-19 deaths with 109,022 confirmed cases.
Currently, the active cases stand at 6,765 with 345 new cases.
The country, which aims to vaccinate its 20 million adults by the end of this year, has set aside $25 million to help fund local vaccine manufacturing, he said.
But Dr Yankson encouraged the public to wear their face masks at all times, wash hands regularly with soap under running water, observe social distancing and sanitize hands often to help curtail the spread of the disease.