A Member of Parliament’s Health Committee, Dr Kingsley Agyemang, has criticised Ghana’s preparedness for a potential Ebola outbreak, describing existing measures as inadequate and overly focused on Accra.
He said the country’s emergency response systems needed to be strengthened across district and regional health facilities to ensure early detection and effective containment of any outbreak.
Speaking on Accra-based Channel One TV, Dr Agyemang said recent preparedness assessments by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Ministry of Health had concentrated largely on selected facilities in the capital.
He argued that such assessments did not provide an accurate picture of the country’s overall readiness.
“We have been following keenly what is happening across Africa and what the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service has been presenting. But what we have seen is very unsatisfactory,” he said.
Dr Agyemang warned that gaps in surveillance, logistics and emergency response could become apparent if an outbreak occurred outside Accra.
He called for increased investment in health infrastructure, personnel training and emergency response systems across the country, insisting that preparedness efforts must extend beyond the capital.
The World Health Organization recently declared the Ebola outbreak in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern following reports of hundreds of suspected infections and dozens of deaths.
Although the outbreak is concentrated in parts of Central and East Africa, health authorities have heightened surveillance over concerns about possible cross-border transmission.
