The General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association, Dr Justice Yanks on, has said that the high number of samples yet to be tested for the coronavirus, is affecting the country's ability to get ahead of the pandemic.

“Clearly we’ve made a lot of progress in terms of our testing capacity but we also still have the problem with us; we still have backlog of samples,” he said on JoyNews’ Newsfile, Saturday.

He explained that, with the high number of people who are believed to have come into contact with the virus and the limited number of test centres in the country, a person tested has to wait for weeks before getting his or her results.

This also contributes to the increase in the number of cases as the people whose samples have been taken go about their daily activities and in the process infect more people.

“The more you wait, i.e, the waiting time to get results, people start disrespecting the preventive measures -  there is a likelihood that persons after testing, awaiting results will still move around,” Dr Yankson said.

“If the person turns out to be positive, within three to five days, he/she would have had the ability to spread the disease and that adds to our cases,” he added.

Dr Yankson stressed that going through these processes quickly, will help the health authorities and the country to get real time data and results so that Ghana can be ahead of the virus.