Under the Media General Thought Leadership Series, Ghana’s leading media company, Media General, in partnership with telecommunications giant, Vodafone Ghana, is hosting a public forum on the global scourge of the coronavirus. The theme for the event is Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs) and their effect on public health management in Ghana.

The public lecture is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 18th February 2020 at the Executive Theatre from 3pm to 5pm. The forum is to give the public a professional perspective of the nature of the disease, how it can be contained, an expert assessment of the risks it poses to Ghana and the state of readiness of the country to contain any infections.

In addition, the forum will provide an opportunity for discussion on the possible challenges the coronavirus poses to Ghana’s public health management system and how they can be overcome. This will be led by Prof. William Kwabena Ampofo, a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Virology Department, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research and the first Ghanaian Aerospace Medicine specialist, Dr. Issaka Yakubu Akparibo, There will also be speakers from the Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Health.

In the last 3 decades, more than 30 new organisms have been identified worldwide and many of them have originated at the level of human-animal interface. With increasing travel, trade and mobility of people worldwide, emerging infectious diseases can easily cross international borders, moving seamlessly from one population to another and it calls for a collective approach.

Ghana is currently on full alert in fear of the new corona virus getting into the country. There were reports of suspected cases which turned out negative after the patients were tested. Following the poor handling of the H1N1 – Type A outbreak in the Ashanti Region in 2018, there is concern among the public about Ghana’s readiness to properly manage an outbreak of the coronavirus.

The Media General Thought Leadership series is a flagship dialogue platform which seeks to interrogate and harness the thoughts of leading thinkers on various thematic, topical or pressing issues of national concern to help improve policy-making processes by creating a free and healthy market of ideas for the development of society. The platform since its inception in 2016 also aims at influencing government decisions and actions in respect of the options and ideas generated.

The event will be broadcast live across Media General news platforms: TV3, Onua TV, 3FM (92.7), Onua FM (95.1), Akoma FM (87.9) in Kumasi, Connect FM (97.1) in Takoradi and 3news.com.