Editorial: Covid-19 upsurge: Vigilance at KIA is the answer

The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament issued a statement this past weekend where they expressed concern about the upsurge of Covid-19 cases at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra.

According to the Minority, “information we have gathered so far indicates that on the 24th of April an all time high of 75 travelers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 at the airport. This, coming as a 67% jump on the previous all-time high of 45 cases recorded on the 21st of April last week, shows an exponential upward trajectory in terms of the positivity rate amongst travelers arriving at Kotoka.

“This clearly raises three pertinent issues. The first has to do with the authenticity of the PCR test results carried by infected travelers coming into the country. Second, the safety protocols instituted at the various airports travelers may have used before arriving in the country. And third, our own measures to ensure the safety of immigration and other officials working at KIA.”

The NDC Minority then advised the government to double her efforts in addressing these issues. “First, a determination must be made on how so many travelers are able to pass through the first screen procedure of a PCR test at their country of origin and land in Ghana having a COVID infection. This may indicate either poor tests or fake results. And in that regard, it is encouraging, although late, that government has issued a directive to have all PCR test results of arriving travelers digitally verified to reduce the probability of travelers arriving with fake COVID-19 test certificates,” the Minority Members of Parliament (MPs) said.

It is instructive to note that the company doing the PCR test has also issued a statement admitting that the covid-19 cases among travellers are rising and that something must be done about it. Ordinary, the upsurge among travellers arriving in the country shouldn’t have raised any eyebrow. President Akufo-Addo has already directed that anyone who will test positive upon arrival in the country should be sent to a holding centre where he or she would be treated before being allowed to mingle with the rest of the population.

This means the President and his team anticipated some of these occurrences, hence, the measures he put in place to deal with the situation. Ghanaians are all over the world, and no law can be passed to deny them entry into the country because they are covid-19 suspects – no, that can’t certainly be done. What we, as a country, need to do is to put protective measures in place to ensure that these new arrivals do not infect the larger population with the virus.

The major problem confronting this issue has to do with trust. A few weeks after the PCR test began at the KIA, The Chronicle had a report that a Ghanaian who had tested positive for the virus was allowed to go home and treat himself after he had apparently bribed the officials in charge. Though this is a major issue that should have been published at our front page, we did not do so, because we could not lay hands on any verifiable evidence to support the story.

This alone shows that something wrong is going on at the KIA, because people now love money more than being patriotic. The Chronicle, therefore, suggests to the government to put the National Bureau of Investigation (NIB) on high alert at the airport.

We do not know how the system is currently working at the KIA, but we, nevertheless, propose that NIB officials should be positioned at the testing centre, and those who test positive must immediate be whisked away to the holding centres designated for covid-19 patients.

This, in our view, will help to curb the spread of the disease in the country. Ghana is part of the global village and we cannot stop travellers from entering the country. That is why we are insisting that protective measures be put in place to ensure that we are all free from the virus.

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