The current COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call on countries including Ghana to initiate the needed socio-economic reforms, the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), has said.

CDD noted in a statement that COVID?19 is affecting 61.3% of the 194 World Health Organisation (WHO) member states.

This situation, the research group said, will have a significant impact on the world, even in countries like Ghana that have seen a few reported cases as compared to some countries in the West and Asia.

“So far, the following are known: The short-, medium- and long-term economic costs have not been fully elucidated. However, the loses on the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE?100) Index alone in the week ending 28th of February 2020 of £200 Billion surpassed the total global losses of SARS (£38.6 Billion), MERS (£6.6 Billion) and Ebola (£1.70 Billion) put together.

“This total is also surpassed by the potential losses to the airline industry of £100 Billion as indicated by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

“Well-resourced health systems like the Chinese (GHSI 48.2), Italian (GHSI 56.2) and South Korean (GHSI 70.2) have had significant challenges fighting off the virus once it had taken hold.

The Global Health Security (GHS) Index is the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across the 195 countries that up the states parties to the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005). It measures countries preparedness towards dealing with an epidemic. Ghana's GHSI is 35.5.

Though the current mortality rate is 3.6%, the disease has been shown to cause significant morbidity in patients above the age of 60 and those with underlying chronic health conditions like hypertension, diabetes and asthma. For those over the age of 70, 21.9% (2 in 10) of confirmed cases lose their lives.

“Personal hygiene, proper handwashing, the regular use of sanitisers and the avoidance of crowded spaces are effective means of minimising the risk of infection and person to person transmission.

Major multi?nationals have had to significantly alter their work patterns to minimise the spread of the disease and large cities and countries have been put in lockdown mode.”