All suspected cases of Ebola virus in Ghana test negative: official

Ghana's Ministry of Health (MOH) reaffirmed Tuesday that laboratory tests on 37 persons suspected of having contracted the Ebola virus had tested negative.

Spokesman for the MOH, Anthony Goodman, told Xinhua on Tuesday in an interview that there had not been a single confirmed Ebola disease in the country as of Aug. 12.

Four suspected cases of the virus reported at the weekend were sent to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) for investigation, but all the tests results proved negative, said Goodman.

"I can tell you on authority that all the four cases sent to Noguchi tested negative," he said.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ebola met on Monday to review its strategy of warding off or containing the disease, which has claimed nearly 1,000 lives in West Africa, after it broke out in Guinea last February.

Ghana's Minister of Health Dr. Kweku Agyemang-Mensah said three Ebola isolation centers for the entire country would be completed in two weeks.

The isolation centers are part of the strategies the government has put in place to fight the Ebola scourge that has hit West Africa since March this year.

The centers are expected to be fitted with technical and personal protection equipment to deal with the situation in the instance of an outbreak.

The government has also resolved to improve medical screening at the country's points of entry.

Ebola, which is fatal and kills infected persons in a matter of days, is spread through bodily fluids, sparking fears that even handshakes or bodily contacts could prove fatal.