The Ashanti Regional Health Directorate has revealed that reinforcement of medical professionals will be sent to Obuasi to help contain the spread of coronavirus in the area.

Dr Emmanuel Tenkorang, Regional Health Director, said since Obuasi is the epicentre of the Ashanti region, strengthening contact tracing, isolating and treatment medical teams, has become very critical.

“We believe that with these reinforcement measures that has been taken by the Obuasi Municipal and Obuasi East, will help contain the infection at Obuasi, so as to cut the infection rate and save the people.

“The principle of tracing, testing, isolation and treatment will have to be intense so it means we have to send in more teams and this is exactly what we are doing,” he told Joy News’ Prince Appiah.

Highlighting the efforts of the authorities to curb the spread of the virus, Dr Tenkorang noted that it was only the medical professionals at Obuasi but now, the region’s health directorate has come in to give the reinforcement that we need to salvage the situation.

As of Tuesday, May 12, the Ashanti region has been reported to have 307 new cases of Coronavirus out of which 272 are from Obuasi alone.

The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) of reported that a couple at the Obuasi market, were the key to spreading the virus in the town.

According to Dr Patrick Aboagye, the pair were unknowingly carrying the virus while going about their usual activities in the central market.

“This was the case of a couple who were positive and had been working with people for the past two weeks with 17 of their immediate contacts being positive and that has led to the spread in the market,” he said.

The market has been shut for disinfection and fumigation while a team of over 40 health officials has been tasked to find contacts.

Currently, Ghana’s Covid-19 cases stand at 5,127 with 494 recoveries and 22 deaths.