Member of Parliament for Ledzokuku Constituency, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye, has given assurances that testing positive for the Coronavirus (Covid-19) does not mean a person is ill or about to die.
Covid-19, he said, is not different from other strains of viruses that cause flu.
According to him, a person could test positive for any of these viruses simply because they have come into contact with them and not because they are unwell.
Dr. Okoe Boye stressed that the only reason Covid-19 is making so much news is that it is a strain that is completely unknown and without known treatment.
He argued that common flu kills many people in Europe and the Americas every year but they do not make news headlines because these are known and the fact that there are treatments.
He, therefore, urged Ghanaians not to panic but to follow and observe the protocols and precautionary measures announced by the President to reduce the risk of infection.
Also READ: Exhaust the regular time before calling for extra – Speaker to leadership
Dr. Okoe Boye spoke to The Ghanaian Publisher in Parliament on Monday 16th March 2020.
He noted that the underlying principle for President Akufo-Addo’s new directive against huge gatherings is to discourage people from high-risk places.
Ghana’s coronavirus cases
He stated that Ghana’s status is relatively safer because all the six cases recorded are vertical transmissions meaning they came into the system from outside.
“It is if we start having person-to-person infections or horizontal transmission that we should begin to worry but we have not experienced that yet.”
The legislator disclosed that people who died from the coronavirus are people with other medical issues like heart conditions or kidney patients.
“If a person has a heart condition and the fever comes in with chest symptoms, such a person goes down easily,” he said.
Cure for Corona
Dr. Okoe Boye advised that the cure for the Covid-19 is people’s immune system.
He indicated that the hundred thousand people and more across the world who recovered from the Coronavirus did not take any anti-Corona drug.
He said, “They recovered on their own. So when people stop going to big gatherings those with the infection will recover on their own without passing on the virus.”
Also: Volta caucus demands swift investigation into Sogakope murder
“And once they build immunity against the virus the infectivity drops and their risk of spreading it is lowest.”
“But if the person has it and is in the active population the infectivity is high” he added.
Virus curve
He urged Ghanaians to observe the precautionary measures announced by the President to buy time until the infection drops.
According to him, every viral outbreak goes through a normal curve with the number rising until it reaches its apex and begins to drop.
“What the President did is to allow us to buy sometime before we reach the curve so that you reduce the number of cases you get before reaching the peak.”
“So it is possible that we will reach our peak with the six cases or seven. But if we don’t take measures we can reach higher numbers at the peak before it starts to drop.”
The President’s directive, he said, will enable people who might have the virus to build their immunity to slow down the transmission rate and reduce the risk for everybody.
