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Education

Six Accra Girls SHS students test positive for COVID-19

By : Tetteh Djanmanor on 05 Jul 2020, 05:21

Accra Girls

Six students of the Accra Girls Senior High school have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Citi News gathered that some students of the school showed symptoms of COVID-19 and were isolated in the school’s sickbay on Monday, June 29, 2020.

Health officials from the Ayawaso East Health directorate were called in to deal with the matter.

COVID-19 tests were subsequently run on 11 students. Six of them tested positive and were on Saturday, July 4, sent to the Ga East Municipal Hospital for treatment.

Meanwhile, calm has returned to the school after agitations over COVID-19 fears among the students.

Reopening of schools
Three days after Ghana recorded its first two cases of the novel coronavirus, President Akufo-Addo on March 15, 2020, directed the closure of schools at all levels to curb the spread of the virus.

But after almost 10 weeks of closure, final year Senior High Schools (SHS) students were asked by the President to return to school on Monday, June 22, whereas their counterparts in Junior High Schools (JHS) were to do same on Monday, June 29, to prepare for their final examinations.

Final year university students were also asked to resume on Monday, June 15.

All of these formed part of the phased easing of COVID-19 induced restrictions by the President.

Unfortunately, just a week after final year students in tertiary institutions returned to school, a National Service person at the Academic Department of the Accra Technical University tested positive for the disease.

The case is said to have been recorded on Monday, June 22, 2020; exactly a week after the tertiary institutions reopened.

Calls for mass testing of students, teachers
Before and after the decision by the government to reopen schools, many guardians and individuals expressed worry with their wards being put at risk by having to go back to school.

Although there were several calls for the government to conduct mass testing of students, teachers and non-teaching staff to avoid the importation of the virus into the schools, it did not heed to these requests.

Source: Citinewsroom.com