The Health Minister has dismissed assertions that congestion as a result of implementing the free SHS policy is the cause of disease outbreaks recorded in some Senior High Schools across the country.

Kwaku Agyeman Manu says the death toll would have been higher if the cause was congestion.

His comments come in response to the assertion by the Head of Disease and Surveillance Unit at the Ghana Health Service, who identified congestion at SHSs as one key factor for the spread of meningitis.

“If the pathogen is in your throat [and] so far as you are one meter apart the other person can get it,” Dr. Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe told Joy FM’s Top Story on Wednesday.

Dr. Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe

But speaking to Joy News, Mr. Agyeman Manu said he doesn’t believe congestion is the cause.

“If there is congestion and there are 25 people sleeping where five people should be sleeping and there’s meningitis, it won’t attack only one person…I don’t think that’s the major issue or the case burden would be higher, he said.”

H1N1 was identified as the cause of death of some four students at Kumasi Academy, while meningitis has killed another four in some SHSs across the country since November.

Authorities assured parents and the public that vaccines will arrive in the country last week but the Ghana Health Service says the vaccines are stuck in Korea due to shipment challenges.

Authorities have reassured the public that the vaccines will arrive in the country on Wednesday, December 20, 2017.

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