SHS students in Accra school contract deadly Indian coronavirus strain

• The variant is reported to be the most contagious of COVID-19 variants

• Some students in an undisclosed Senior High School have contracted this new variant 

The highly contagious COVID-19 strain, Delta has been recorded in one of the Senior High Schools in Accra.

This was disclosed by the Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, in an interview with GhanaWeb Saturday.

According to him, most of the students who contracted the virus were asymptomatic and are responding to treatment.

“There’s an outbreak in the school (name withheld), they did some tests, some of them had a Delta strain…Noguchi decided to do specialized testing…when they did the tests, they realized that some of the students had the Delta strain…most of the students are actually asymptomatic and I’m sure by Tuesday, all of them would have been discharged,” Dr. Asiedu-Bekoe said.

He noted that these recorded cases of the Delta strain show that the highly contagious variant is in the community.

“The Ministry of Information issued a statement that there was a Delta strain in the community. Prior to that, we have actually been able to detect the Delta strain at the Airport but at that time, we were not sure that strain was in the community so now, we have the evidence that Delta strain is in our community,” he told GhanaWeb.

Though the details of the particular school and number of students involved were not specified by Dr. Asiedu-Bekoe, a GhanaWeb source close to a health facility where some of the cases were said to have been confirmed revealed that two of the affected students were brought to the facility by their parents for testing.

This was after the school had sent them to the Achimota Hospital.

Delta variant confirmed in community in Ghana:

It would be recalled that the Ministry of Information on Friday announced that the deadly COVID-19 Delta variant had been recorded in the country.

The Delta variant which originated from India is reported to be the most contagious of COVID-19 variants.

It has been attributed to spiked up cases in the United Kingdom and subsequently led to the deaths of many in India.

The Ministry also advised the general public to adhere strictly to the COVID-19 safety protocols to safeguard their lives.