Professor Abraham Annan, the Director of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), has said the wrongful use of alcohol in place of a hand sanitizer could increase the chances of picking up coronavirus (COVID-19).
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He said alcohol may be good as a disinfectant, it must be used with the right requirements but the public must be cautious in going for ordinary alcohol as disinfectants for hands instead of properly prepared hand sanitizers.
"Alcohol can be good for disinfection; in the laboratory, for example, we use alcohol for disinfection," he said, adding "but before the alcohol is used, we prepare it in a certain way. We, first of all, will use water that is distilled or de-iodinized. We won't use tap water or any water to prepare the alcohol for disinfection in the laboratory," he said.
Speaking on GTV, he said: "the concentration of the alcohol is set to a certain concentration that it works best. If you change that concentration, make it higher it doesn't work as good as even that optimum lower concentration and if you bring it lower, it also doesn't work as good. So alcohol usage for disinfection is a science. So if you go and take something like local gin like akpeteshie, and say that I'm using it to clean my hands, no, it won't work."
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However, health authorities have announced that cases of the Coronavirus disease in Ghana have increased to a total of six as of Saturday, March 14, 2020.
The Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Badu Sarkodie said the four new cases like the previous two announced last Thursday were imported into Ghana.
Over 200 contacts have been traced in all the cases and are doing self-quarantine.
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