Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has explained that the 533 new infections recorded at a fish-processing factory in Tema are part of the backlog of cases which needed to be cleared.
The country’s infections witnessed a significant increase on Friday, May 8, 2020, after 921 new cases were added to the 3091 already reported positive cases. The 533 cases from the factory are said to be part of the 921 new cases that were reported.
President Akufo-Addo in his ninth address to the nation on Sunday mentioned that “these new nine hundred and twenty-one (921) cases were from backlogs dating as far back as 26th April, and not necessarily over a twenty-four (24) hour window.”
This is despite the fact the country’s biggest testing centre, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research disclosed at a press briefing on Tuesday, May 5, that there were no backlogs to test apart from some 1,982 samples which were to be cleared by the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research by May 7, 2020.
Speaking on Starr FM on Monday, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that the fact that the backlog has been cleared is not an end in itself as they will need to go through a chain of protocols before they are finally brought out in the public domain.
The Minister, however, added that there are no backlogs to be cleared, and no data undergoing protocols thus Ghana’s cases will be real-time cases from the time of the President’s address.
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“The Tema case was part of the backlog and the fact that the backlog has been cleared in the lab does not mean they’ve gone through the full value chain of informing the disease surveillance team, who will then inform the particular clinician or district health director who was leading those test, who will then ensure that the positive persons are informed and isolated and then later an announcement is made that this is where we are and so on and that has been the formula we use from the beginning
“I think the President himself announced it that the backlog of samples in the lab have been cleared and now they are working towards ensuring that every day the numbers they get they clear it and they can update it,” the Ofoase Ayirebi MP said.