Ghana's Covid-19 case count has seen a significant jump by a whopping 193 cases.

The latest figure released by the Ghana Health Service (GHS), which may come as unexpected to many, now puts the national tally at 834 from the previous 641.

One more death has been recorded while the number of those who have recovered from the viral infection has also increased to 99.

Four major cities of the country, Accra, Kumasi, Kasoa and Tema, are already on a three-week lockdown aimed at holding the spread of the deadly virus.

However, it is unclear if the restrictions on movements, which has already been extended once, will be called off by the President, Nana Akufo-Addo in his next address due to the sudden rise in the number of cases.

Situation update

The Ghana Health Service said in a statement on its website:

"The Ghana Health Service is supervising the completion of a backlog of laboratory samples which have been picked for testing as part of the Covid-19 testing exercise.

"This is after some 57,000 samples have already been successfully tested as at April 15, 2020. In the first batch of this backlog, an additional 198 have been found to be positive.

"This will bring Ghana’s total case count to 834 at the moment. The general public is, however, advised that this does not represent new infections that are occurring. It represents results from tests of a backlog of samples.

"The laboratories have been working day and night to test this large number of samples. Hopefully in the next few days all the testing would be completed.

"Total samples tested so far now stands at 60, 916 with 1.37 % testing positive.

"Regions that have reported cases are Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Northern, Volta, Upper East, Upper West, Central, Western and North East."

Background

The government on Thursday revealed that it was expecting results from some 12,000 samples sent for testing.

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, in a tweet on Thursday evening, said the processing will be in addition to 51,000 samples already tested as at yesterday.

Contact tracing teams and lab technicians were tasked to trace some initial about 10,000 at-risk-persons but have already tested some 50,000.

The enhanced testing programme makes Ghana the second most aggressive country in testing for Covid-19 in Africa.

Experts say early testing is key in helping a country take control of the spread and contain in.