How a nine-year-old boy became the youngest person to die of COVID-19 in Ghana
A nine-year-old Ghanaian boy has been reported as the youngest person to die of COVID-19 related complications in Ghana and the rest of Africa. Although there have been cases of children as young as three contracting the disease, the nine-year-old is the first to die at such a young age.
Dr. Badu Sarkodie, the Head of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service announced the boy’s death during a press briefing where he noted that the age range of COVID-19 deaths recorded so far in the country is now between 9 and 82 years.
Ghana has been able to keep the country’s death rate at the barest minimum while the recovery margin keeps progressing. This is even as the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that up to 190,000 people in Africa could die of COVID-19. And 29 million to 44 million could be infected in the first year of the pandemic if no vaccine is found and the standard of control is not amplified.
Also, people living with health conditions and male patients have been identified to make up the highest percentage of mortality, except in the age bracket of 25 and 34 where the rate is the same across both genders.
“Males are having highest range in death in all age groups with the exception of 25 to 34 years where the death rate is the same,” Dr. Sarkodie noted.
As of Thursday, May 14, Ghana has recorded a total of 5,408 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 24 deaths and 514 recoveries.
