The Ghana Health Service (GHS) says the total number of workers who have been exposed to the new coronavirus from their colleague at a Tema Fish Processing Factory is now 695.
In all, 1,300 workers were tested for the virus, Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, the Head of Disease Surveillance Department of the GHS, said in an update on the case management situation at the factory.
However, he explained that after the Company was closed down for the isolation and treatment of the infected workers, 624 of them had tested negative.
They await their second post-treatment negative test in line with Ghana’s Ghana’s COVID-19 Recovery Protocol.
Contact-tracing is also being done in Accra in relation to the workers who live there.
Dr Asiedu-Bekoe said when the GHS Delegation visited the facility, it noticed some predisposition factors, which aided the spread of the virus.
These include the non-observance of physical/social distancing, the transportation of staff on a bus, six persons eating at the Company’s canteen at every point in time, poor ventilation and the use of a common clock-in machine.
To prevent the recurrence of the situation, the GHS Team tasked the Management of the Company to institute safety and preventive protocols at the workplace.
Those measures, he said, included ensuring social distancing by workers, the compulsory wearing of face masks, and the placement of alcohol-based hand sanitizers in vantage points.
Additionally, only two persons should be made to use the Company’s canteen at a time, there should be holding rooms, floor markings to indicate appropriate distancing, and the use of a thermometer clock as well as hand washing facilities at vantage points.
The GHS Team, he said, would revisit the Company soon to examine the level of compliance before it could resume operation.
Meanwhile, Ghana recorded 183 new cases of COVID-19 between May 16 and 17, bringing the total number to 1,918, with 1,754 recoveries and 31 deaths.
There are, however, five persons who are critically ill but with none on a ventilator.
