Global Health Expert at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR), Dr. John Amuasi has said that the occurrence of a third wave of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana, is inevitable.

According to him, data on the pandemic points to a looming health crisis but the intensity of the outbreak is yet to be ascertained.

Speaking to Evans Mensah on JoyNews' PM Express, the Global Health Expert said government must begin to institute stringent measures to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.

"If the data is anything to go by, we realized that whatever pertains in other parts of the world turns to show up here. We saw a first wave, it came here. There was a second wave, we had it as well. And we can clearly see that we are somewhat at the beginning of the third wave of a sort."

"How far it will mount, we cannot tell but in other African countries, it is going on. We have not dodged the bullet. The truth of the matter is, the data we have access to, makes it clear," he said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) indicated that Africa is in the middle of a full-blown third Covid-19 wave and there is a need for more vaccination.

South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Egypt have recorded the most cases on the continent.

A total of 136,030 people have succumbed to the virus in different African countries, according to WHO.

The Delta variant is in 14 African countries including Ghana while the Beta variant, first detected in South Africa, is in 25 other countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz3XI2iTEts

Dr. Amuasi suggested that Ghana's effort to procure vaccines must be guided by other variants being detected.

He said that the severity and hospitalization might be high when the third wave of the pandemic is in full swing. He further revealed that the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi has seen a rapid surge in Covid-19 cases.

Dr. Amuasi bemoaned the lack of interest in the vaccination exercise, especially among the youth; describing the situation as alarming and called for urgent measures if herd immunity is to be achieved.

“If you look at the numbers in the Ashanti Region, it is already going up. I can tell you that over the past few weeks, we have seen a significant rise in the numbers of positive cases. With the pre-screening, half of them were positive."

“What this means is we need to be very careful and if we watch carefully it is the younger population being infected,” he told host Evans Mensah.

The Leader of Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research Group at KCCR also proposed that more stringent measures should to be put in place at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) for Covid-19 testing and mandatory quarantine of people who test positive to prevent the spread of the new variant.