41 stranded Ghanaians return from the US as part of Covid-19 evacuation
41 stranded Ghanaians return from the US as part of Covid-19 evacuation; For several weeks, the Foreign Ministry and its Missions abroad, together with key MDAs such as the Interior and Aviation Ministries, as well as the Ghana Immigration Service have been working closely to bring back home stranded Ghanaians in several countries.
To ensure a well-coordinated evacuation exercise, the government decided to undertake the exercise in phases.
Some 41 Ghanaians have arrived in Ghana from the United States of America as part of the government’s arrangement to evacuate stranded citizens from foreign land amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The development comes on the back of an announcement by Foreign Affairs Ministry June 4 that it was facilitating some chartered flights to carry Ghanaians back home despite the closure of the country’s international borders.
“Following the return from Kuwait, I am pleased to inform this august House about government’s efforts to extend the evacuation exercise to other parts of the world,” Foreign Affairs Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey told Parliament on June 5.
The citizens who were transported from Washington DC are mostly students USA-sponsored exchange program.
The evacuees entered the country’s airspace on a South African Airways flight Saturday morning the Kotoko International Airport.
They are undergoing a two-week observation following during which they will be mandatorily quarantined at a hotel in the capital.
A total of 35 out of the 231 Ghanaian returnees from Kuwait have tested positive for Coronavirus. According to the Ghana Health Service, the number was realised from an initial test run on the returnees.
An update by the Ghana Health Service on the latest on COVID-19 in country said ”Initial Results of Kuwaiti Returnees The results of the initial test of all 231 Kuwaiti returnees had 35 (15.15%) of them being positive for COVID-19.”
Director of Public Health at the Service, Dr. Badu Sakordie during a press briefing on Thursday, May 28 hinted that some of the returnees have tested positive but could not state the exact number.
“We haven’t finished with the testing of all the people that we took samples from. There are indications that some of them are positive [for COVID-19]…We will follow up on this and when we have the full report, we will share this report appropriately,” Dr. Sarkodie said.
The returnees who arrived in Ghana on May 23, are the first batch of citizens resident abroad who applied to be brought back home following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
They arrived via a special chartered flight at the cost of the Kuwaiti government and are on a 14-day mandatory quarantine as screening and tests are carried out.
—:Joynews
