The Director General of the Ghana Health Service says they are actively looking for cases in the population even as the case count are increasing.

Dr Patrick Aboagye said Ghana's approach is similar to the one which Koreans used to fight against the spread of Covid-19 to shorten the period the virus stays in the country.

“Our approach is not like other countries where they are sitting for people to come and report. We go out there,” he told Super Morning Show host Kojo Yankson, Monday.

He explained that the Service no longer waits for the 14-day period to pass before health workers test.

As schools begin to reopen to final year students at various education levels across the country, and confirmed cases are on the rise, parents, teachers, and schoolchildren are concerned that there could be a further spike in case numbers. 

However, Dr Aboagye has reassured them that because of how the GHS is approaching the fight against the virus, and as long as people continue to practice the health protocols, the virus would be out of the country in no time.

“Let’s say I’m positive and the previous approach was to wait for 14 days, and I came in contact with someone, if he doesn’t complain of coughing or anything then we let him off.”

However, “we don’t do that anymore. We test you as soon as we see you.”

“What we are doing is to shorten the duration of this outbreak.”

He further explained that medical centres cannot wait for sick people to arrive at hospitals.

“If you wait for people to come in when they are sick you will have lower numbers and more problems to deal with and then a prolonged pandemic. So our approach is different.

"If you look at the way the Koreans, they used a similar approach, they were able to shorten them on average. They were able to get a population that uses mass routine testing". 

"If you get people to comply with the hand hygiene  and social distancing I can assure you we will have this under control."

"We are not going to wait for cases, we are always going to go out for cases," the Director General said.