A report launched by Child Rights International has revealed that as of Monday, November 9, a total of 2,180 children have contracted Covid-19 in the country.

The Executive Director of Child Rights International, Bright Appiah who made the revelation said the research involved persons between the ages of 0 to 18 in 589 communities across the country.

According to him, the research revealed that most of the children who contracted the disease were asymptomatic and as such were not admitted to the hospital.

“Looking at the general cohort of Covid-19 infection in the country, I would say children were less affected by the disease, majority of them were asymptomatic, therefore, they didn’t have to be admitted the hospital,” he said.

The child activist, however, called on government to pay more attention to children’s health, noting that programmes should be introduced to help address the nutrition of children in the country.

“There will be the need for government to redesign its School Feeding Programme (SFP) to get experts to design a nutritional content or the value for the how the SFP need to be run and provide a general nutritional advice to the public to maintain a strong immune system in children against Covid-19,” he said.

Touching on the effects of the closure of schools on the lives of children, Mr Appiah said, per the data collected, the majority of the children are unhappy with being at home because they are subjected to various forms of abuses.

Highlighting the findings, Mr Appiah said, “Two out of five children experience physical abuse or maltreatment and about 5 per cent of the children experience maltreatment more than ones a day.

“In all, 8 out of 10 children interviewed preferred to be in school instead of being at home.”

Following the outbreak of Covid-19 in Ghana, President Akufo-Addo ordered the closure of all schools in March as part of effort to control the spread of the disease.

Subsequently, schools were reopened for final year students of junior high, senior high and universities to write their respective exit examination.

Soon after this he called for some continuing students, particularly, JHS and SHS two students to resume classes whilst the others remain at home until January 2021.