The government of Ghana has increased surveillance at the borders in order to stem the importation of Ebola and Murburg Virus Diseases into the country.
While The Ivory Coast has confirmed an outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease, Guinea has confirmed an outbreak of the Marburg Virus Disease.
Briefing the media in Accra on Sunday, 15 August 2021, Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said: “The Ghana Health Service and its partners have activated our systems since the outset” of the outbreaks.
“We have structures for all our rapid response at the borders, and they have been alerted with the fact about both Ebola and Marburg”, he noted.
According to him, “alerts have been sent to the regions and the district about the Marburg operation”.
“The Ebola one will be leaving today but we have started discussions with all our regional leaders, so they start preparations for that”, Dr KumaAboagye added.
He said: “The good thing is that some interventions that are currently in place can also be used to respond to this”.
“Ghana has the capacity to test such cases at Noguchi for both the Ebola and Marburg Disease. Public education and sensitisation have already been initiated”, he said.
“We are going to heighten the public health surveillance at our borders, especially the Western border where we have Ivory Coast and countries where we have discovered the virus”.
“Currently, the borders are closed, we have to ensure that those necessary checks are done for those who will enter illegally”.
“So we are currently collaborating with the Immigration Service to ensure that these things are sorted out. We are equipping our port health staff, so they can screen and look at that”.
