At least 13 students of a school in Ghana’s second capital city, Kumasi have been killed by the deadly atypical bacterial which is a respiratory infectious disease.
Health officials in Ghana have said that the outbreak has reached an epidemic level as more students of the Kumasi Academy where the outbreak was detected continue to be rushed to health facilities for treatment.
Ghana’s health service has said that the outbreak was initially reported in April and since then it has devastated students in the school.
Officials had suspected the infection to be meningitis but on Tuesday confirmed that after investigations, the bacterial was rather atypical infection.
Traumatized parents of some of the students on Tuesday clashed with school authorities and police officers when they stormed the school to withdraw their wards.
The Member of Parliament for Asawase, the area where the outbreak occurred Muntaka Mubarak has raised concerns over the government’s handling of the issue.
Ghana’s health minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu has however defended government’s handling of the crisis.
He told local media Starr FM that the government “never delayed, people don’t understand health systems…after March we never saw the disease and it was like whatever plans they put in place seemed to be working until another thing happened.”
According to the minister the samples have been taken from both the dead and affected students and sent to the Noguchi Memorial Research Center in Accra for investigations.
Ghana’s health service is refusing to rush into sending the students home fearing a major spread should students be allowed back into the community.
There however plans by the government to close down the said school where the outbreak occurred this week if the crisis isn’t contained.
Source: Africafeeds.com
