The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH) has made a passionate appeal to President John Dramani Mahama not to allow Ghana to host the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) competition scheduled to come off early next year.
The PSGH stated emphatically that allowing the tournament to be hosted in Ghana in January 2015 would be a very big mistake as it would open the floodgates for Ebola virus carriers to come into the country in their numbers and later infect the good people of Ghana with the virus.
The appeal was contained in a statement signed and issued in Accra by the group’s president, James Ohemeng Kyei.
Morocco, the original host of the event, had written to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to postpone the tournament because of security and health concerns, with particular reference to the outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease in West African states, notably in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The society noted that Morocco’s request for postponement was timely, appropriate and in the best interest of CAF member countries in view of the gloomy prediction on Ebola by the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC).
Ghanaian health workers must also be saved from this avoidable Ebola infections and deaths, the statement adds.
It would be recalled that on October 17, 2014, Mahama Ayariga, Minister of Youth and Sports, announced that Ghana was ready to host the 2015 AFCON next January.
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The CDC reported recently that more than 8,000 people have contracted the disease worldwide, resulting in over 4,000 deaths. The agency has also predicted as many as 550,000 to 1.4 million Ebola infections by January 2015.
In their petition, the pharmaceutical society reminded the government that treatment of Ebola patients remained a big challenge even in the most developed nations.
It said if the developed countries did not find it easy to treat Ebola cases, then only God knows what would happen in Ghana should there be an outbreak of the disease.
