Ghana is currently experiencing a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a total of 6,765 active cases as at August 7, 2021.
The West African nation has so far recorded 109,022 coronavirus cases. About 892 people have succumbed to the virus and over 100,000 recoveries have been recorded.
The country as at July 14, 2021, has administered 1,271,393 COVID-19 vaccine doses, with 405, 971 recipients having been fully vaccinated, while more than 865,000 await the second dose of the vaccine.
On July 14, the Ghana Health Service said vaccinations had been halted, mainly due to shortages. However, the country was working to receive some doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines before the end of August.
Ghana, on August 7 received 177,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as part of the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust mechanism established by the AfricanUnion with support from the African EXIM Bank, the Africa CDC and the World Bank.
GHS COVID-19 website goes down
Meanwhile, the health agency leading the fight against COVID-19, the Ghana Health Service(GHS)’s website that provides updates on the coronavirus case situation and management in Ghana went down for about 72 hours starting July 31.
The @DSD_GHS website has been down for ~72 hours. Most recent #COVID19 update prior to that was from July 25, a week ago.
Frequent, timely updates are crucial for risk communication, and that really matters now because we’re in the most dangerous phase of the pandemic yet. pic.twitter.com/PWDSWSkAdY
— Nana Kofi Quakyi, MPH (@nkquakyi) August 2, 2021
Subsequently, the Ghana Health Service on August 2 announced in a tweet that it had moved the website to a new domain.
We wish to inform the general public that the COVID-19 Update Portal has been moved to a new domain. All updates can now be viewed from https://t.co/Mu8zg5NGJm
Thank you
— Disease Surveillance Dept_GHS (@DSD_GHS) August 2, 2021
New COVID-19 update portal
The new Ghana Health Service new COVID-19 update portal still maintains features of the previous platform which is no longer available.
The new portal has a number of features, including;
- Simple facts about coronavirus
- Situational update with a breakdown of:
- Confirmed cases and treatment outcomes
- Positivity rate by surveillance type
- Vaccination updates
- COVID-19 situation dashboard; This has an embedded link that takes you to Ghana’s COVID-19 cases count.
- Health Declaration Form; This also has an embedded link that helps you to access your health declaration form and it is specifically designed for travellers coming to Ghana.
- The platform also hosts the Ghana Weekly Epidemiology Report of the Ghana Health Service.
- Information for air passengers; Information for departing and arriving passengers is available on the platform.
By: Gifty Tracy Aminu
