The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has confirmed that tests conducted on two of its soldiers quarantined for possible Ebola infection have proven negative.
This was confirmed by the Acting Public Relations Officer of the GAF, Lieutenant Colonel Eric Aggrey Quarshie.
The soldiers prior to being quarantined were on a Peace Keeping Mission in Mali.
[contextly_sidebar id=”vfkON44nF54oADSuGxIsirTRuUbLrPkI”]They were brought back into the country after taken ill in Mali.
Their presence at the 37 Military Hospital was said to have caused fear and panic among the health workers.
But speaking to Citi News, Lieutenant Colonel Eric Aggrey Quarshie said tests carried out on the blood samples taken from the soldiers came out negative.
“They were not well and they were admitted there [Mali] and transferred to the 37 Military Hospital,” he said.
He defended the decision by the 37 Military Hospital to quarantine the soldiers saying, “we have troops in Mali on Peace Keeping Mission so because they were coming from Mali and they came as medical case, the necessary precautions had to be taken and that is why the hospital had quarantined them.”
Their blood samples were taken to Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research for confirmation.
“Fortunately, it came out negative. They are not suffering from Ebola,” he stressed.
Lt Col. Quarshie insisted that the soldiers “had medical problems and that is how come they were brought back but not because of Ebola so they will be undergoing the treatment for which they were brought down.”
He however assured Ghanaians that GAF and the United Nations (UN) Peace Keeping programme have put measures in place to protect all personnel both in and out of the country form contracting the disease.
“Those [Military officers] who are outside, there is a lot of attention on them and even the UN itself is also has measures in place to ensure personnel do not contract the disease whiles working to bring peace to whichever area they are deployed,” he said.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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