Global Health expert Dr John Amuasi says the delay encountered by the Ghana Health Service in reporting Covid-19 figures has added to the suspicion that the information is being massaged.

According to him, the delay is as a result of the processes the data has to go through before it is released to the public.

Speaking on Newsfile, Saturday, he explained that information on Covid-9 cases are gathered from every region and sent to the Ghana Health Service headquarters to be assessed before announced to the general public.

Dr Amuasi told Samson Lardy Anyenini, host of the show, that by the time the information is released to the public, it may have leaked or cases and/or death may have increased.

"This I believe is what causes the discrepancy. I think that we can report a bit quicker and the processes can be sped up," the leader at the Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research Group at the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR).

His comment comes after some bodies including Occupy Ghana expressed concern that the government may not be reporting accurately the Covid-19 deaths.

According to the group, some anomalies it has detected in the data cannot be a true reflection of the situation on the ground.

However, Dr Amuasi said that Ghana Health Service is also faced with some technical challenges when it comes to defining a Covid-19 death.

"Death with Covid-19, death of or from Covid-19...somebody has a road traffic accident, brought into the ER and then dies a couple of minutes later, for some reason someone decides to take a swab, a coronavirus positive, now does this mean the person died from coronavirus? Will you count it as a coronavirus death?"

"Someone with stage four cancer would have died in the next six months but their death got accelerated by Covid-19, are you going to record that as a cancer death or a Covid-19 death?"

Dr Amuasi explained that the least mistake made during these categorisations would decrease the people's trust in government when it comes to the information on coronavirus in the country.

He stated that the increase in suspicions can continuously mar the efforts of government and the GHS in the fight against Covid-19.

"This delay is not necessary and can easily be gotten rid off by people trying their best to provide information as quickly as possible and also being as transparent as possible."