Former Communications Minister, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, wants government to get its house in order with regard to the information provided to the public in the fight against Covid-19.

His call follows a revelation by the Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare that, a model generated for the coronavirus infections in Ghana has projected that some 15,000 people may be killed by the raging virus.

Dr Asare had stated on PM Express on April 21, that his projection is premised on a baseline projection that 10% of Ghanaians are likely to test positive for the virus before infections peak.

Many Ghanaians were left alarmed as to why the three-week lockdown would be lifted in the face of such striking data.

Dr Nsiah Asare subsequently, at the Information Ministry’s press conference on Wednesday, clarified that his projections were largely hypothetical.

“I said that is not the case in Africa. Based on the facts and data we have, we have realised that our actual figures are far below what the World Health Organisation (WHO) had quoted,” he said.

He also posited on Tuesday night that Ghana’s 68,591 tested cases included duplicate cases of testing.

This too has been clarified by the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIR) which said, results reported by the Ghana Health Service (GHS), are from individual samples taken and do not include duplicated ones.

But Dr Omane Boamah in a statement on April 22, explained that, “in  order  to  limit  the  influence  of  power  on  the   truth,  we  need  credible  and  clean  data  –  not  data  that  contains   duplicates  among  others.”

The Former Minister also touted the need to adopt a “Strategic  Model” of health policymaking, to  “explain  why  Ghanaians  must  be  assured  and  not  be  talked  down  by  Government  in  the  ongoing  discussion  and  debate  about  the   discrepancies  in  the  Covid-­19  data  in  Ghana.”

These among others, highlighted in his statement titled 'The fight against coronavirus disease in Ghana and evidence-based medicine,' Dr Omane Boamah believes, will help enhance data processing in the country's novel coronavirus fight.