The Director of Health Promotion at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Aboagye Da Costa has advised that persons with underlying Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) must be given serious and strict attention in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In its latest report, the Ghana Health Service announced six new deaths, raising the country’s Covid-19 death toll from 129 to 135.

Three males and three females died in the latest report, two each from the Northern and Central regions, one from Oti and Western regions. Whilst one – a 44-year-old man from the Northern Region had no co-morbidities, the rest died of one form of an underlying condition or the other.

Stroke, Hypertension, Kidney disease and a new cause: postpartum infection – a disease that can develop after delivery of a baby, accounted for the latest deaths.

Until now, postpartum infections and stroke had not been identified among the co-morbidities afflicting Covid-19 patients, raising concern about how non-communicable diseases are contributing to Ghana’s Covid-19 deaths.

Dr. Da Costa Aboagye said the latest data adds to an already worrying statistics recorded since the outbreak of Sars-Cov-2.

“Majority of the deaths that we have recorded in this country came from co-morbidities, underlying conditions; and most of these underlying conditions tend to be non-communicable diseases; hypertension, diabetes, and the others. So we certainly have to step up education on these non-communicable diseases with emphasis on diabetes, hypertension, and the cancers.” he lamented.

He again hinted, though no new death was reported from the Ashanti Region, it remains the region with the highest number of deaths – contributing nearly half of the country’s Covid-19 deaths.

Dr. Aboagye continued that a high powered medical team, led by the Director-General of the Service is already in Kumasi to investigate the trend.

“As we speak, there is a team trying to investigate what is actually happening in the Ashanti region. The Director-General himself, Dr. Patrick Kumah Aboagye is there.” he furthered.

Story By: Akokoraba Nyarko