Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye on Wednesday, June 22 dismissed claims of an Ebola outbreak in the Northern Region of Ghana.
During the early hours on Wednesday, a report from a health simulation exercise was mistakenly attributed to a positive case that had been confirmed in the Northern Region by a portion of the mainstream media.
Updating the press on the current health and outbreaks in Ghana, the Director-General reiterated that there has not been any Ebola outbreak in Ghana and cautioned the media to confirm such reportage from the country’s health service.
“I want to use this opportunity to say we don’t have any Ebola cases. But as a service, we always run simulations. We just don’t wait for the things to happen but rather we run simulations to rehearse the strength of our health system. So that was an exercise being run in Tamale that would there be an Ebola outbreak, we would be ready. With our labs and surveillance team. That is what I think someone misconstrued as a real outbreak.
Francis Atiagbor, the Northern Regional Disease Surveillance Officer, had confirmed what the Director-General had indicated.
“I am not aware that we have picked an Ebola case in the Northern Region, but what I can say for a fact is that we were running a simulation exercise on Ebola virus disease at the Public Health Emergency Management Operation Centre,” he said.
“Simulation exercises are part of one of the requirements under international health regulations and all countries are enjoined to regularly run simulation exercises to test their preparedness for such public health emergencies.”
Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is a rare and deadly disease in people and nonhuman primates. The viruses that cause EVD are located mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. People can get EVD through direct contact with an infected animal (bat or nonhuman primate) or a sick or dead person infected with the Ebola virus.
