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Residents of Zongo communities have been advised to strictly adhere to recommended safety protocols in the fight against the coronavirus disease due to their vulnerability.

They should endeavor to stay safe from the virus as communities which are mostly densely populated.

Hajia Zeinabu Sallow, the Ashanti Regional Director of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) who gave the advice, said cases of COVID-19 in zongo communities could be devastating considering the culture and nature of households.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, she said the number of people in typical Zongo homes were most often many, a situation that made social distancing very difficult to observe.

She said because of the way Zongos were set up, it was common to find residents in groups either in or outside their houses and called for discontinuation of such practices in the face of the pandemic.

“This is not the time for the Zongo youth to be converging at their usual places to drink “ataya”. We are not in normal times and everybody must accept to do the right thing,” she advised.

She urged community leaders including Mallams and chiefs to take active part in the education of the people to influence behavioral change in order to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infections in Zongo communities.

She expressed fear that if one person gets infected in a Zongo community, thousands of people may end up becoming victims and appealed to inhabitants of Zongos to observe all the precautionary measures to avert a possible outbreak.

“If you do not stay home and get infected, you put every member of your household at risk, so please observe the simple directives to save your household,” she pleaded.