13 persons have reportedly been quarantined in the Upper East Region, according to the Ghana Health Service.
They encountered a soldier who has died from the monkeypox virus before this happened.
It was the first case in the area, according to Dr. Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi, the Upper East Regional Director of Health Services, who confirmed the death to JoyNews on Sunday.
He stated in a press release that: “the confirmed case was seen on 22 July 2022 at the Upper East Regional Hospital with history of fever and skin rash.”
“Unfortunately, the case died on the 26th of July 2022. Samples were taken on July 22, 2022, for confirmation at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) in Accra. We received feedback on July 28, 2022, indicating the sample tested positive for Monkeypox disease.”
Since the locals don’t know how the deceased caught the virus, there have since been worries about the disease’s potential to spread inside the area.
However, in an interview with JoyNews, the Ghana Health Service’s Director of Public Health, Dr. Franklin Asiedu Bekoe, stated that GHS has launched a thorough response to the crisis, including the choice to quarantine all 13 people found through contact tracing.
“For now we have 39 confirmed cases in the country and a number of contacts but only three contacts have become cases. Also, most of the cases we have gotten in Ghana are mild cases and some of them we applied herbal preparations and they go.
“I think that we should focus on the ability to prevent infections by avoiding contact with persons who are infected,” he added.
The World Health Organization has in the meanwhile designated the monkeypox outbreak a worldwide health emergency.
The categorization, which comes after a global spike in infections, is the highest alert the WHO can issue.
The director-general of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated that more than 16,000 cases have already been recorded from 75 different countries.
There are now just two additional health crises: the coronavirus epidemic and the ongoing fight to eradicate polio.
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