CAPE TOWN - Ghana recorded its youngest Covid-19 patient in the Ashanti region on Thursday, news site GhanaWeb reported.
Citing the Ashanti regional director of the Ghana Health Service Dr Emmanuel Tenkorang, it said the 10-year-old boy had contracted the novel coronavirus in an area with the lowest number of confirmed cases.
Of the 43 districts in the region, only 17 had recorded positive cases of Covid-19 with Obuasi district being the epicentre with 47 cases, Tenkorang said.
Of the 163 cases in Ashanti, 56 percent were males while females accounted for 44 percent.
“The youngest case we have had here is 10 years old and the oldest 83 years," said Tenkorang.
"Some 37 people have so far recovered and three are currently on admission. The number of contacts that we are actively following as of now is 54."
Dr Tenkorang said with the increase in cases, the Ghana Health Service had intensified testing, tracing and isolation in order to contain the coronavirus.
Ghana so far has 3,091 confirmed Covid-19 infections, with 18 deaths and 303 recoveries.
The West African country's health service says Ashanti has recorded the second largest number of cases, with the Greater Accra region accounting for 2,579 cases to date.
According to real-time data portal Worldometer, Ghana has the sixth-highest number of cases on the African continent, behind Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa which has the most number of cases at 7,808.
Africa as a whole has 53,200 Covid-19 cases -- the lowest among six regions tracked by Worldometer. Some 2,027 people on the continent have died from complications linked to Covid-19, while 18,513 have recovered.