The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Upper East Region has called for immediate suspension of police training activities of the Police Training School at Pwalugu for reportedly containing the majority of the Region's COVID-19 case

The party in a statement issued by its Regional Communications Officer, Alhaji Saeed Ahmed Tijani, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga said: “The attention of the National Democratic Congress in the Upper East Region has been drawn to media reports of an outbreak of COVID-19 in the Pwalugu Police Training School.”

The statement noted that the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the Region collected over 600 samples of Police recruits at the training school as part of their heightened surveillance for COVID-19 testing, and said: “over 199 police recruits tested positive of the novel COVID-19 in the region.”

“This has increased the region’s COVID-19 cases from the initial 42 to 241 making the Upper East the 6th highest region in the COVID-19 case counts in the country. This latest development is causing fear and panic among the populace throughout the region.”

The NDC described the infection rate in the School as “unfortunate development,” saying the high infection rate was expected “Because the government defied experts’ advice and secretly admitted students into the Police Training Schools nationwide in the wake of this COVID-19 pandemic.”

“It must be emphasized that the region over the last three weeks had zero active cases since the initial 26 active COVID-19 cases were treated and discharged from the treatment centre at the Upper East Regional Hospital, Bolgatanga, according to the GHS,” the statement recalled.

The Party stressed that the infection rate at the school was likely to overstretch the capacity of the Region’s treatment centre, logistics and human resources, especially health professionals in the Region who were mostly at risk of acquiring the virus.

“According to our reliable sources, the Region has almost run out of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), which exposes Health Workers to the disease.”

“Already, the COVID-19 situation in the country has been worsened with over 12,193 cases and 58 deaths and counting, following the easing of restrictions by the government”.

The statement said the rise in COVID-19 cases in the Region, especially in the Training School, with just a fraction of the results in, was a worrying issue to the NDC Party as a key stakeholder.

The Party cautioned that the infection among the recruits should serve as a lesson to Teacher Unions, and said with the reopening of schools, the government should prepare for similar infection rates as some students or pupils scattered across the country including Regions with high recorded cases of COVID-19 were likely to transmit the virus, and may inadvertently infect their colleagues.

The Party asked the government to temporarily close down the Police Training School to prevent further spread of COVID-19 as the GHS had pending results of samples yet to be received which might give higher numbers of infection.