The Municipal Chief Executive Officer for the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly Hon Aminyuure Joseph Atura has hinted that the Nationwide disinfection of Markets initiative by the Government of Ghana in partnership with Waste Management Experts Zoomlion Ghana Limited(ZGL) supervised by the Ministry Of Local Government And Rural Development(MLGRD) has helped market women and the Bolga municipality at large.
“This disinfection exercise that has been undertaken by the government is doing a lot for the market women in Bolgatanga. Most of the times when the markets have been disinfected it kills germs, pests and other disease causing agents that are likely to be living in the Market”.
He added that the mode of transmission of the coronavirus is tricky, hence, needs comprehensive and aggressive response such as the one being currently undertaken by government.
“We are all aware that the virus as we know can be contracted through physical contact. Just as people are in the market doing their businesses, people with Covid-19 are also in the market and could easily transmit the virus by living traces of them on surfaces in the market”.
He further stated that, anybody who is in the market and doing business could contact the virus so the best thing is that this disinfection exercise would normally curb possible situations that are likely to be existing within the market.
“It has helped the municipality in the sense that our cases as at now stands at zero. The last cases were three and they have recovered and discharged.” he added.
We have however sent few samples for testing and the results are yet to be out. As at now, the Bolga municipality doesn’t have a case, he stated.
He further noted that with the ministry of health initially, we used to be at the border between our district and the Talensi District where we screened people who came into the municipality. But with time it was clear that we were not having serious cases so we stopped.
Now that we are having the second wave that we are seeing in the country where there are increases in terms of the covid 19 cases, we will need to redouble our efforts in that direction.
So I have held a meeting with my municipal health director and we are thinking of ensuring how best we can do some sampling in terms of taking some temperatures but if you look at this seriously we don’t have any serious cases of Covid 19 and myself and my municipal director are making sure that people are in their nose masks all the time and ensure that at least we have some amount of social distances and people are frequently using their sanitizers.
These are the measures that when employed by our people it will reduce the cases of covid-19.
Hon Hajia Hawa Ninchema, Municipal Chief Executive Officer of Bawku Central on her part, on behalf of the Municipality expressed her heartfelt gratitude to the government and zoomlion.
‘It has been very helpful to us. It has helped all of us in the municipality. The first and second exercise killed a lot of mammals. Massive cleaning up exercise was held after the disinfection exercise.’
On measures taken against the spread of the virus in the area,she hinted that the protocols will continue to be observed by ensuring the wearing of nosemask, using of sanitizers and also education of community members to create awareness of the Pandemic.
“We will educate the people that the coronavirus pandemic is still in existence. Together with my health officers we will embark on a sensitization program and also broaden our contact tracing efforts”.
The third phase of the disinfection exercise begun on the Saturday 14th November, 2020 from the Bolga old market through Paga, Navrongo, and markets in Bawku.
