KUMACA Blues: “We Are Equal to The Task” ―GHS Boss

The Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, has debunked claims by some experts that health regulators were not taking pragmatic measures to help curb the deadly bacterial infection which has claimed at least 13 lives at the Kumasi Academy (KUMACA).

According to him, those throwing fiery darts at the Ministry of health (MOH) and GHS were speaking from uninformed intuition.

Dr Nsiah-Asare said, the MOH together with the GHS have been working tirelessly to contain the situation after the first incidence was recorded in April.

In an interview with Starfm on Thursday morning, the GHS Director said, “I don’t know the bases he is using to say that. I don’t think he knows the time that we were there, the time the first patient died and what we have done so far.”

He continued: “we are doing mass antibiotic administration. We took advantage of it because patients who had the symptoms were in the hospital…most of the students had come in contact with the other patients that is why we have started the azithromycin therapy.”

“We are not overwhelmed, and we are very much on the ground. We are equal to the task,” Dr Nsiah-Asare added.

Situational Report on KUMACA

Reports have it that the situation is under control as the three-day medication programme came to an end yesterday with no fresh so cases recorded.

About eight patients were still on admission and most of the students had been discharged.

Spiritual connections

Various spiritual heads have however refused to overrule the possibility of a spiritual connection to the incident as school authorities including teachers, students and parents converged at the school’s Assembly Hall to seek God’s intervention.

The Otumfuo Sunkwaahene and his subjects are expected to have stormed the school last night, to perform the needed rituals that would avert the said “evil”.

The health crisis in KUMACA had generated public outcry after students of KUMACA in the Ashanti Region were rushed to the hospital after they collapsed on campus with some eventually losing their lives.

By: Grace Ablewor Sogbey/ [email protected]