'Ghana will never have 3 million COVID-19 infections' - Dr Nsiah Asare clarifies comments
The Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, says his comments on projections on the number of likely Coronavirus (Covid-19) infections in Ghana made during a television interview were taken out of context.
In an interview on Joy News on Tuesday night, Dr Nsiah Asare quoting the World Health Organisation (WHO) global projections on infections and deaths on Covid-19, deduced that in Ghana’s case, if everything remains the same, some 15,000 people may be killed from the Coronavirus in Ghana.
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“We expect that about 10% of the population may be infected and out of the 10% of the population 80% may not show signs or symptoms at all and 5% of them will be very ill, that is the projection,” he said, referring to the WHO global model.
He added that out of this 5% of persons projected to be critically ill, 10% may die.
Clarifying his comments at a press briefing on Wednesday, Dr Nsiah Asare said his comments made on Joy News were from a World Health Organization hypothesis based on the population of African countries that do not put in place any measures to curb the spread of the disease.
He said given the measures that Ghana has put in place to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, Ghana will not get such a high number of infections.
"I want to make it very short, that, It is not true that Ghana will have 3 million people infected before we reach the peak, we would never see that," Dr Nsiah Asare said.
"Because as we speak now... The number of deaths in the country is 9. In fact, you calculate as a percentage of the number of people who have been infected its 0.7%. So, it is nowhere near the 5%".
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