The Deputy Health Minister has likened the sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 recoveries to the strict criteria being followed by the Ghana Health Service.

Dr. Bernard Okoe-Boye said that unlike other countries, the GHS requires anyone treated of the disease to negative twice before they are declared recovered.

He explained, first, the person must cease to show symptoms of the disease and then go through two rounds of testing.

Speaking on Beyond the Lockdown on JoyNews, Dr. Okoe-Boye said the pressure of testing new cases and also testing samples to get the first negative test may create the delay in getting the samples for the second tests.

He said should Ghana also use just one round of negative test result to declare a patient as recovered from the coronavirus disease, recoveries can be declared as often as possible but the GHS is following strict WHO criteria.

The concerns came after the last update where the number of recoveries shot up.

Critics suggested that the GHS were massaging the figures but Okoe-Boye dismissed such claims.

He said the scientists working on the samples were not recruited from a political party where they could be persuaded into producing unverified results.