Why the Government of Ghana should evacuate its citizens from Wuhan immediately

Mickey Adney, a Ghanaian in Wuhan, China Features Feb - 25 - 2020 , 14:56

To evacuate or not to evacuate Ghanaian citizens in Wuhan is the question before the Government of Ghana now. The Special Advisor on Health to the Ghanaian President, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, has stated that the government will not bow to pressure to evacuate Ghanaian students in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak. He argues that, the only time the government will move to evacuate the students will be after successful observation of all technical advice from health authorities on the gravity of the situation.

Despite persistent calls for evacuation following the outbreak of the Coronavirus, the Public Health Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Badu Sarkodie and the Acting Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kumah Aboagye, have also said that after careful deliberation of the status of Ghanaian students in Wuhan, evacuating them is not an option for now. The narrative of the Government and the Ghana Health Service appears tricky. Here are my reasons.

First, the impression that the mass evacuation of Ghanaians in Wuhan amounts to importation of the virus is wrong. There are over 182 students across 17 universities in Wuhan of which none has been, at least through daily screenings, been infected yet. The World Health Organisation and the Chinese Government have also developed guidelines for evacuation of foreigners from Wuhan. According to the WHO guidelines, the students are taken from their campuses to a central location where they are medically tested before they are bussed to the Tianhe International Airport. This ensures that anyone tested positive remains in Wuhan to receive medical treatment.

Those who are evacuated will be further quarantined for 14 days upon arrival in Ghana. This is another precautionary measure to guarantee that anyone who gets infected during the flight is observed and isolated for medical treatment to prevent the importation of the virus through evacuation.

It should however be noted that not all countries especially the US and European countries follow these guidelines. As at now, all countries that have evacuated their citizens from the epicenter and have duly followed the WHO protocols have not recorded a single case of spreading of the virus among those evacuated. Evacuees are not the virus.
Secondly, the health system in Wuhan is currently overwhelmed. Those of us on the ground have seen university campuses being converted to hospitals for the patients of the Coronavirus. Although the Chinese health system is advanced than that of Ghana, it’s currently overstretched.

In addition, evacuation is the best the government can do as the tense and depressive situation here is not good for academic work which started on 17th February. One should be mindful that academic work for this semester runs from February to June and will solely be online due to the lockdown. The universities in Wuhan have advised students who went home for the holidays to stay and study from home for their own safety. With daily recorded cases of mental breakdowns, emotional distress and panic attacks among Ghanaian students, how do we expect students to study under those conditions?

Thirdly, there is no better time to evacuate the students from Wuhan than now. The infection rates keep surging on a daily basis. Most countries evacuated their citizens and students when there were less than 1000 cases and 100 recorded deaths. As at 17th February 2020, there were more than 70,596 infections with over 10,146 being severe cases and 1,770 deaths. So, if the ministry of health and the Ghana health service say they are still monitoring the situation, it’s a demonstration of an unbelievably shallow and myopic understanding of the situation.

Furthermore, Wuhan has since 8th February been declared a Code Red Zone, meaning the whole city is a highly contagious precinct. The more Ghanaians stay here, the higher their chances of getting infected. Also, relatively poorer countries such as Seychelles, Mauritania, Papua New Guinea, Maldives, Nepal, East Timor and Bangladesh have evacuated their citizens. Ghana has a better health system than these countries and can do better than is currently being done. The evacuees will surely be of no threat to the nation if the protocols outlined by the WHO and the Chinese government are followed.

To conclude, it’s very miserable that the well-intentioned request of Ghanaians in Wuhan to be evacuated is being politicized. As a matter of fact, most of the assertions by the health experts are wide off the mark. Evacuating citizens out of Wuhan cannot amount to the importation of the virus. The WHO and the Chinese authorities have developed a medical test kit that can detect a person’s status two hours after being infected. This is different from medical screening. For instance, the Brazilian citizens to be evacuated were assembled at a central location for two hours before they were tested and bussed to the airport. This ensures that only those who test negative are sent home. Unless our leaders don’t believe in scientific medicine, their current argument shows a prejudiced consideration of the issue.