Government as part of measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak in the country, on Saturday night begun quarantining all passengers disembarking at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

According to one of the travellers, passengers were not informed about the development prior to arriving in the country until they got to the arrival hall of Terminal 3.

Passengers were surprised to see the hall swarmed with senior government officials as well as health officers.

The source said after airport and health authorities finished their checks, all the passengers were made to board buses to begin a 14-day quarantine.

Those who arrived onboard a British Airways flight were reportedly driven to the Airport View Hotel located about a kilometre away from the KIA.

A pssenger who arrived from Monrovia, Liberia, onboard Air Cote d'Ivoire, said she was being quarantined at the La Palm Royal Hotel also in the capital.

Ghana can no longer take any chances as the number of novel coronavirus cases have increased from 19 to 21 as at Saturday.

The number of active cases, however, is 20, as one of the patients has died.

Effective Sunday, Ghana will close all its borders in a move to contain the pandemic which has recorded cases with people who have no travel history, what experts call community transmission.

President Nana Akufo-Addo who announced this Saturday said the decision is to help reduce further escalation of the infection rate in the country, which hitherto recorded only imported cases.

“All that government is doing is intended to achieve five key objectives: limit and stop the importation of the virus, contain its spread, provide adequate care for the sick, limit the impact of the virus on social and economic life, and inspire the expansion of our domestic capabilities and deepen our self-reliance,” he explained.

It was his third address to the nation on the coronavirus pandemic.

He said all the country's borders - land, air and sea - will be closed at midnight on Sunday.