Covid-19: Be on guard, Ghana in fourth wave – Presidential Advisor on Health

Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the presidential advisor on health, has confirmed that Ghana is in a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as the country records over a 1000 cases daily.

Ghana currently has over 8,500 cases and it is largely attributed to the new variant of the COVID-19, the Omicron which was discovered in South Africa early this month but has spread rapidly around the world.

Speaking on The Big Bulletin on Tuesday (28 December), Dr Nsiah-Asare said Ghana is also experiencing community spread of the new variant.

“We’re recording over a 1000 cases every day for the past few days. Now we’ve community spread, especially in Greater Accra and Ashanti Region. We’re definitely in the fourth wave. So everybody has to be very careful. We need to wear our masks and avoid crowded areas,” he told Asaase News’ Beatrice Adu.

Compulsory vaccination

In an earlier interview on Asaase Radio, Dr Nsiah-Asare said the government may be forced to trigger compulsory vaccination under the Public Health Act if the increasing spate of new COVID-19 cases worsen.

“… It is the influx of people coming all over the world for holidays and I’m sure you are aware that there is a lot of surges all over the world, US, UK and some European countries are all having their fourth waves and a lot of our compatriots and other foreigners are coming into the country and once they are coming, the importation of the virus into the country will also go up,” he said.

“The Health Minister has already invoked the Public Health Act, but we have not come out publicly to say that we are going to compulsory vaccinate anybody. We are trying to vaccinate as many people as much as possible, using all sort of ways that we are using to convince the people…”