PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
Ghana: Ghana orders postponement of tertiary institutions to check Ebola
Accra, Ghana (PANA) - Ghana's Education minister, Prof Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, has directed heads of tertiary institutions to delay the start of the 2014-15 academic year by two weeks as part of measures to prevent the outbreak of the Ebola virus in the country.
A statement issued in Accra on Tuesday said private and public tertiary institutions were affected by the directive which was on the advice of the inter-ministerial committee on the Ebola Virus.
The statement said: "All vice chancellors, Rectors, Presidents and Principals are kindly requested to comply with this communication."
The two week period will allow for adequate measures, including screening facilities, to be put at the various tertiary institutions before they reopen.
Some public tertiary institutions have already announced an indefinite postponement of their reopening dates because of Ebola and a strike by university teachers over the payment of their research allowance.
Tertiary institutions have scheduled the commencement of the first semester from this weekend.
Meanwhile, the deputy Education minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has said the inter-ministerial committee is working with health directorates in the various tertiary institutions to ensure that there can be immediate reporting of any symptoms that look suspicious.
He said students coming from Ebola affected countries would be screened to ensure that they did not import the disease into the country.
Okudzeto Ablakwa added that the government was to put a freeze on international conferences and public gatherings as part of measures to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus into Ghana.
Ghana has not recorded any case of Ebola but there have been nearly 40 negative tests after people showed suspected symptoms.
The government has also said it would in the next two weeks set up three Ebola isolation centres at Tema, near Accra, for the southern sector, Kumasi for the middle belt and Tamale for the northern sector.
More than 1,000 people have died and 1,800 have been infected in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since the outbreak of the disease in Guinea last February.
-0- PANA MA 12Aug2014
A statement issued in Accra on Tuesday said private and public tertiary institutions were affected by the directive which was on the advice of the inter-ministerial committee on the Ebola Virus.
The statement said: "All vice chancellors, Rectors, Presidents and Principals are kindly requested to comply with this communication."
The two week period will allow for adequate measures, including screening facilities, to be put at the various tertiary institutions before they reopen.
Some public tertiary institutions have already announced an indefinite postponement of their reopening dates because of Ebola and a strike by university teachers over the payment of their research allowance.
Tertiary institutions have scheduled the commencement of the first semester from this weekend.
Meanwhile, the deputy Education minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has said the inter-ministerial committee is working with health directorates in the various tertiary institutions to ensure that there can be immediate reporting of any symptoms that look suspicious.
He said students coming from Ebola affected countries would be screened to ensure that they did not import the disease into the country.
Okudzeto Ablakwa added that the government was to put a freeze on international conferences and public gatherings as part of measures to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus into Ghana.
Ghana has not recorded any case of Ebola but there have been nearly 40 negative tests after people showed suspected symptoms.
The government has also said it would in the next two weeks set up three Ebola isolation centres at Tema, near Accra, for the southern sector, Kumasi for the middle belt and Tamale for the northern sector.
More than 1,000 people have died and 1,800 have been infected in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since the outbreak of the disease in Guinea last February.
-0- PANA MA 12Aug2014
