Did All Covid-19 patients in Upper East test negative?

Some Ghanaian news portals have reported that all the Covid-19 patients in the Upper East Region have recovered and discharged from the Treatment Center at the Regional Hospital in Bolgatanga where they were managed.

Mynewsgh reported that, “At a case count of 26 with 2 deaths, all other COVID-19 patients in the Upper East region have recovered from the virus.”

The news portal which referenced Dr. Patrick Aboagye, Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, as the source of the story also reported that the treatment center had been temporarily closed because there were no cases at the facility.

The Ghana News Agency also carried out a similar report. The news portal quoted Dickson Baba Nsoh, a Clinical Psychologist at the Regional Hospital as saying, “the fact of the matter is that, we have been able to successfully manage and discharge all those we were having at the treatment Centre but do not forget we were having some that were being managed from home.

“I would not want to give statistics because when it comes to Covid-19, there is somebody who should be doing that but far more than 10 persons have been discharged.”

Fact-checkGhana.com looked into the report and found it to be Mostly True.

Explanation:The total case of COVID-19 in the region is 26. Out of the number, two died, one absconded and one was managed at home. The remaining 22 were managed at the Treatment Center. All of them, 22, recovered and have been discharged.  Thus, it is true that all the patients except the one that absconded have fully recovered and have been discharged. However, the status of the one that absconded is still not known and so; to state emphatically that all Covid-19 patients in the region have recovered is not entirely true.

When Fact-checkGhana.com contacted Dr Winfred Ofosu, the Upper East Regional Director of Health, he said that the status of the run-away Covid-19 was not yet known though he is part of the region’s case count of 26.

Yakubu Zakariya, administrator of the Regional Hospital also confirmed that all the Covid-19 patients who were admitted and managed at the hospital’s Covid-19 treatment center had been discharged.

“It is true that we have discharged all of them [patients]. So, we no longer have patients at the center.”