COVID-19 not death sentence, stop the stigmatisation - Health service boss advises
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, says stigmatisation should not be given a place in the fight against COVID-19 because contracting the disease is not a disgrace or a death sentence.
He said affected persons had high chances of recovery if cases were reported early.
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People without the disease could also lessen their risks to the barest minimum if they adhered to outlined preventive measures and so “we only have to stay safe rather than stigmatising people.”
Minister’s briefing
Speaking at a periodic government briefing session known as “Minister’s Briefing” in Accra today to update the public on COVID-19 management efforts, Dr Kuma Aboagye said case management in Ghana had been encouraging. Supporting his claim, he said 83 of confirmed cases had been treated and discharged, with 17 declared as having fully recovered.
“Treated and discharged means that they have tested negative after treatment and they are being monitored at home in isolation for some weeks for the last confirmatory or exit test to be declared recovered. The 17 have gone through both tests, tested negative and have been declared fully recovered,” he said.
The GHS director-general said affected persons on treatment posed no more threat to the public once they had been picked for management.
However, he said, those potential cases hiding for fear of being stigmatised were those that were public health threats.
Dr Kuma Aboagye called on communicators, particularly media practitioners, to prioritise the positive stories such as the recoveries as against the negative ones to boost the national fight.
Stigma, affront to efforts
The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, said the stigmatisation by some communities and individuals undermined the entire response programme such as the resistance to the siting of management facilities in their communities.
The minister said those were due to the stigma attached to persons, including frontline health workers and those perceived to be carriers of the virus.
He said stigmatisation was also deterring potential cases or people who fell within the case definition to come up voluntarily to be tested, a step necessary to stop community spread.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah appealed to the public not to panic but be serious about keeping safe by staying at home and adhering to the recommended preventive measures.
Caution to relief items distributors
On other issues, the Information Minister said while the government appreciated the gesture of philanthropists and organisations offering support in the distribution of food to vulnerable groups during the lockdown, he cautioned them to adhere strictly to the social distancing protocol.
That, he said, was to prevent such gestures becoming a conduit for more spread rather than support to the containment of COVID-19.
The caution, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said, had become necessary because of information about crowding at some distribution points, without regard to the rationale behind the stay-at-home order.
“First of all, we applaud your service and intentions but if you do not adhere to social distancing measures, then your efforts will be counterproductive. Make an effort to demarcate standing points for the one metre or two-metre distance to be observed to avoid any horizontal spread of the virus,” he said.
Details of stigmatisation challenge
An advisor to the National Response Team, Dr Ama Edwin, said stopping stigmatisation was a shared responsibility.
She defined stigmatisation as treating a person or group of persons differently in an unfavourable way because they had or were associated with something people did not want to have or associate with, particularly, health conditions.
“What is happening now is that we have patients, frontline health workers and their families being stigmatised and labelled to the extent that they lose their status in society,” she said.
Dr Edwin said stigmatisation was happening because COVID-19 was a new discovery with a lot of ‘unknowns’ and misinformation.
That, she said, had resulted in patients not being forthright with useful information and that was a threat to the success of the national response efforts.
To deal with stigma, she recommended that reliable information should be provided, with more and adequate public education.
Dr Edwin also appealed to the media to be circumspect with the information they put out to help deal with stigma and help build trust in the healthcare system.
Media practitioners should also stop using words and expressions that would lead the public on to stigmatise people leaving with the condition and their families.
National update
As of the time of going to press yesterday, Ghana’s COVID-19 case count was 636.
Out of the number, 17 have been treated, reverted to negative on repeat tests and discharged; 605 cases have been categorised as mild disease and are on treatment and two are categorised as moderate to severe cases.
There was none in critical state, although eight have died.
Of the 636 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 268 were reported from the routine surveillance, 253 from enhanced surveillance activities and 115 from travellers under mandatory quarantine in both Accra and Tamale.
Regions that have reported cases are Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central, Eastern, Western, Volta, Northern, North East, Upper East, and Upper West.
On the national update, Dr Kumah Aboagye said: “This accounts for a per capita testing to 1,265 per one million, the highest in Africa, followed by South Africa with a per capita testing of 1,161 per million populations.”
He said aggressive tracing, testing and treatment had been Ghana's approach to get ahead of the virus containment curve.
“Ghana’s testing regime puts the country at 14th in the world. As of the said date, 44,421 samples had been taken, with tests per capita at 1480/1, 000, 000,” he stated.
Communal communication
A Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Pius Enam Hadzide, who is leading the national efforts to bring on board a couple of local languages to deepen and enhance public education and information dissemination on COVID-19, said the Ministry of Information had engaged the services of the Bureau of Ghana Languages to translate all key communication materials into local languages, including Twi, Ga, Ewe, Dagbani, Hausa, Dagari and Nzema.
Such materials include the presidential briefings, Ministry of Information press briefings, educational materials, policies and major announcements in relation to the fight against the global pandemic.