The Ghanaian leader Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has called on leaders of the West African sub-region to adopt local methods to fight the coronavirus pandemic, which is wreaking havoc across the globe instead of copying blindly the methods used in other parts of the world.
“I think it is very important that we tailor a specific Ghanaian, African response to the handling of this pandemic and not necessarily copy blindly the methods that are being adopted by countries to the north of us and elsewhere,” local media reports quoted President Nana as saying during West African Heads of State virtual ECOWAS Extraordinary Summit on coronavirus pandemic held on Thursday.
The reports added that President Nana Addo commended the Chairman of the ECOWAS, President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger for convening such a crucial meeting to discuss the fight against the deadly virus in the sub-region.
Explaining the local methods to deal with the pandemic, President Nana Addo said Ghana’s approach was based on four principles which involved mobilizing social forces of the country such as the religious, scientific, academic, political and civil society to deal with the threat posed by the pandemic.
According to him, the second approach is that his administration is led and informed by science and other data that are assembled and that he is learning from the experience of the government of countries that are further down the road in responding to the virus.
President Nana Addo again told his colleagues on the virtual meeting that his country was taking advantage presented by the pandemic by continuing to push for Ghana Beyond Aid agenda saying that “we are trying to limit and stop importation of the virus” since his country had discovered that “virtually all the coronavirus cases we had in Ghana came from travelers, who were coming into Ghana”.
To contain the virus, President Nana noted that there has been aggressive process of tracing and testing with more than 85,000 Ghanaians tested for the virus.
Ghana has recorded 1,154 confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 120 recoveries and nine deaths and the number is said to be highest among the West African countries.
DAP/GIK/APA