Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, says President Akufo-Addo should be lauded for his tremendous efforts in the country's fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the Health Minister, the Covid-19 updates from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) are evidence of progress.

Addressing the press on Wednesday, Mr Agyemang-Manu revealed that the President chose not to sleep to ensure the lives of citizens were protected.

"Our positivity rate is now around 6.9 per cent. How did we get to this level? I think I will urge all of us, media people, those of us working for government, to give a lot of praise and credit to our President.

The only person who encouraged all of us so much with his direct involvement in the Covid battle. At times, we were casting insinuations at him; we wouldn't let him hear because it looked like he was threatening us too much. This our President wouldn't sleep."

He further noted that President Akufo-Addo was always present at every national Covid-19 task force meeting.

He said the President's presence bolstered the government's efforts to implement the appropriate initiatives to halt the importation of the virus and its spread in the country.

"He was always there at meetings with us. Every meeting we had, from March 2020 till today, the Covid task force meeting, our President never missed.

"The benefit we had was we took decisions hands on. So when scientists debate, when we all talk, in his presence, we could make decisions for implementation.

"So anytime we left there, it felt like we left cabinet. We were not waiting on the cabinet secretary to write cabinet decisions for us to implement, we went ahead to start implementation," he said.

According to Mr. Agyeman-Manu, testing, tracing, treatment, and vaccination have been carried out successfully leading to effective management of the pandemic.

“World Health Organisation (WHO) assessment last year indicated that the two countries on the globe that got COVID management right were Ghana and South Korea. It is evidenced in a lot of things we are doing,” he added.

He, therefore, reiterated that "let us give a lot of thanks to our President."

Meanwhile, the Health Minister has indicated that the country's Covid-19 death toll as of February 5, stood at 1,426.

Currently, the country is battling with 527 active cases. Out of the total figure, five are considered severe while two others are said to be in critical conditions.

So far, the GHS has confirmed 157,917 Covid-19 cases and has discharged 155,964 people from the various health facilities.