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The Ghana Health Service has disclosed that up to 55 people in the Greater Accra Region have contracted the Monkeypox disease.

The Greater Accra Regional Director of Health, Dr. Charity Sarpong, who disclosed this at the 2022 annual meeting of the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council, added that one of the victims had died.

According to Dr. Charity Sarpong, most of the cases were recorded in communities in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, citinewsroom.com reports.

“33 percent of the cases were recorded in the Accra metropolis,” the director is quoted to have said by citinewsroom.com.

Ghana recorded its first five cases of Monkeypox infections in June 2022 after 12 suspected cases were investigated following the outbreak of the disease in the world.

In August 2022, the GHS confirmed that the virus killed a personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces in the Upper East Region.

According to the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease caused by the Monkeypox virus. It is endemic in Nigeria and Cameroon and is transmitted from an infected animal (squirrels, rats, dormice, monkeys, etc.) or from infected humans, he said.

On the mode of transmission among humans, he said the virus could be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, face-to-face contact, mouth-to-skin contact, as well as touching bedding, towels, clothing or objects used by an infected person.