Ghana lifts all COVID-19 travel restrictions for arriving passengers

The Government of Ghana has lifted all COVID-19 travel restriction for all arriving passengers in furtherance of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) declaration that COVID-19 is longer a public health emergency.

For out-bound passengers, pre-departure testing and tests at all points of entry are no longer a requirement. Passengers will, however, have to meet the COVID-19 protocol requirement of the destination country.

These were contained in a letter signed by Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service and addressed to the media.

It noted that the COVID-19 vaccination drive would continue and persons with symptoms of cough, fever and sore throat would be tested for both flu and COVID-19 at all sentinel sites across all the 16 regions of the country.

“Surveillance will continue to help us identify any COVID-19 variants of concern. Persons with complaints of fever, cough or sore throat should report to the nearest health facility for management,” the letter noted.

It said there were decreasing numbers of concerns of death and hospitalization with levels of population immunity against SARS Co. v-2. It noted that though covid-19 remained a global health threat, it was time for countries to transition from emergency mode to managing covid-19 alongside other infectious diseases.

There has been a sustained decline in COVID-19 cases in the country over the five past months. As of May 15, 2023, there were only 18 active cases none of which was severe or critical adding that the only covid-19 death in 2023 was in January.

Since January 2023, there had been 187,089 international passengers arriving in the country of which more than 98 per cent were either fully vaccinated or persons below 18 years of age who were exempted from testing based on the national guide.

As a result, only 3,890 were required to be tested out of which 24 tested positive. It continued that as of May 19, 2023, more than 13.5 million had received at least a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine whilst 10.5 million persons were fully vaccinated, and 4.5 million persons had taken the vaccine

Ghana follows the likes of Liberia and other countries in Africa who have lifted all COVID-19 restrictions, AviationGhana can confirm.. No COVID-19 vaccination certificate is required for traveling to Liberia, neither is a negative COVID-19 test result a requirement.