Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, has denied claims that a heavily mutated new COVID-19 variant named Omicron case has been identified in the country.
According to him, no such case has been recorded in Ghana, therefore Ghanaians should disregard the false messages on social media.
"... We have not identified one (Omicron) in Ghana. All people who have tested positive at the airport, their samples are sequenced, all of them.
"We also pick samples from reference labs across the country to do sequencing. Currently, they have a bunch of 160 that they are working on now but, there is no indication of Omicron in Ghana. S all those messages flying around, it's not true, there is no case in Ghana," Dr Kuma- Aboagye said.
He added the measures of preventing Omicron remains safe; adding that GHS has put in place the needed measures to ensure the virus is controlled when discovered.
He also advised Ghanaians to follow the safety protocols which includes wearing of masks, vaccinations and social distancing.
"The preventive measures remain the same, we have not had any evidence that it wold pass through a different part than what we know now and so all the mechanisms that are in place continue to work and we also continue our surveillance and once we discover, we will look at that," Graphic.com.gh quoted.
Meanwhile, a former Member of Parliament in Botswana, Alfred Rabashemi Madigele has alleged that the first cases of the new COVID-19 variant the southern African country last week 'was detected in 4 diplomats of Ghanaian origin'.