Vol.6. "Experiences Regarding Coronavirus in Ghana"

In the 6th episode of the “Stay Home Stay with ViVID” series, I would like to share experiences regarding coronavirus in Ghana when I visited in March 2020.

I stayed in Accra, Tamale, and Kumasi, Ghana, from March 3rd to 21st to conduct the first ViVID field visit and to see my friends. Although the number of COVID-19 cases was gradually increasing in Japan since mid-February, there were no cases found in Ghana. Still, Ghanaians were aware of the news that COVID-19 has been spreading from Wuhan, China, around neighboring countries. Walking down the street, I often heard people calling me “coronavirus.”

Back in 2014, when the ebola disease was epidemic in West Africa, Ghana had no influence. This gave a lot of people false confidence that COVID-19 also, will not spread in Ghana. Until mid-March, people were very optimistic about pandemic COVID-19. They were joking and laughing about it on SNS with pictures and video clips, despite the risk of virus inflowing from surrounding countries like Togo, where cases were found. I was deeply concerned about the lack of risk awareness, and at the same time, I was surprised to see Ghanaians' sense of humor and a positive mindset.

However, after the first case was found on March 12th, the situation had quickly changed. People became more serious, and some began to buy sanitizers, and others put on the cloth around their faces to substitute masks. Parents told their children to wash their hands. Four days after the news, the President announced to shut down all schools. The situation changed minute by minute, and I hurried to change my flight. TV broadcasted COVID-19 related news from Europe and Africa with campaign video on prevention measures by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Ghana Health Service (GHS) in between. One thing that I was very impressed with was the prayer meeting by politicians. In Ghana, where 70% of the population is Christians, it is common to see religious activities in both public and private lives. Since Japan is a strictly secular society, it was interesting to see how people had no question to see Christian leaders praying for the country.

As we mentioned in the last episode of “Stay Home Stay with ViVID” series, the governments' reactions to COVID-19 were distinctive from a country to country. Here, we can also see how people react differently in various countries as well. It was striking to experience Ghanaian culture.

The situation in Ghana is even worse now, with the number of cases reaching 5,530 today (Ghana Health Service, May 15th). In order to support our partner community in which people have been unable to take prevention measures, ViVID has decided to launch a crowdfunding project until June 14th. English site will come up soon!

https://ghanahealthservice.org/covid19/