![\"\"](\"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/children-1024x683-1.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
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Ghanaian kids are back in\u00a0school<\/a>\u00a0despite the country seeing a resurgence in\u00a0COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0cases.<\/p>\n The decision which was announced by\u00a0President Nana Akufo-Addo<\/a>\u00a0continues to divide opinion, especially following recent\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that some pupils have tested positive for the coronavirus.<\/p>\n The debate about whether children should be required to wear nose\/face masks is dominating public discussions, with some social media users even claiming that the World Health Organisation(WHO) recommends that children under 5 years should not wear masks.<\/p>\n So, what is the WHO recommendation for whether children should wear masks or not?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n WHO: Children and masks<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0World Health Organization and UNICEF<\/a>\u00a0in a joint guidance have advised people to always consult and abide by local authorities on recommended practices on whether children should wear masks or not in their respective countries.<\/p>\n This means the policy recommendation of the Ghana Health Service(GHS) and the Ministry of Health would be the ultimate guide for children in Ghana.<\/p>\n This notwithstanding, WHO and UNICEF have offered a broad recommendation that children aged 5 years and under should not be required to wear masks.<\/p>\n According to the WHO, their guidance is informed by the work of an international and multidisciplinary expert group which was brought together to review evidence on COVID-19 disease and transmission in children and the limited available evidence on the use of masks by children.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For children aged 6-11 \/12 and over\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n For children aged 6-11, WHO and UNICEF advise that the decision to use masks should be based on the following factors:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n WHO and UNICEF advise that children aged 12 and over should wear a mask under the same conditions as adults, in particular when they cannot guarantee at least a 1-metre distance from others and there is widespread transmission in the area.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ghana Health Service:<\/strong>\u00a0Children and masks<\/strong><\/p>\n The Ghana Health Service (GHS) says children aged 2 and above should wear face\/nose masks.<\/p>\n This according to the Acting Director of Public Health at the GHS, Dr Franklin Asiedu Bekoe, is the country\u2019s policy which has been adopted following consultations with the Ghana Education Service(GES) to help control the spread of the virus in schools.<\/p>\n \u201cWe encourage that the teachers supervise the space and give them(children) some time to get fresh air so they don\u2019t get to put it on all day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Children infected with COVID-19<\/strong><\/p>\n Statistics from Child Rights International(CRI)<\/a>\u00a0show that 2,180 children have been infected with Covid-19 between March 11 and November 9, 2020, out of which 4 have died.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, there have been more recent reports about COVID-19 infections among students including\u00a0\u00a020 students in the Greater Accra Region<\/a>,\u00a0\u00a042 others from the Akosombo International School<\/a>\u00a0and an\u00a0eleven-day-old baby<\/a>\u00a0also testing positive for the coronavirus at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Researched by Gifty Tracy Aminu<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ghanaian kids are back in\u00a0school\u00a0despite the country seeing a resurgence in\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0cases. The decision which was announced by\u00a0President Nana…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,53],"tags":[],"coauthors":[474],"class_list":["post-4704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gambia","category-health"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":45,"label":"Gambia"},{"value":53,"label":"Health"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/children-1024x683-1.jpeg",1024,683,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Gifty Tracy Aminu","author_link":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/author\/gifty-tracy-aminu\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":45,"name":"Gambia","slug":"gambia","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":45,"taxonomy":"category","description":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NII-ABE.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
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\r\n\r\n\r\nGet the latest Gambia fact-checks from FactSpace West Africa, an independent, non-partisan organisation working to tackle mis\/disinformation and propaganda across West Africa.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","parent":0,"count":96,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":45,"category_count":96,"category_description":"\r\n\r\n\r\nGet the latest Gambia fact-checks from FactSpace West Africa, an independent, non-partisan organisation working to tackle mis\/disinformation and propaganda across West Africa.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","cat_name":"Gambia","category_nicename":"gambia","category_parent":0},{"term_id":53,"name":"Health","slug":"health","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":53,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":58,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":53,"category_count":58,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Health","category_nicename":"health","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6312,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions\/6312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4704"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enspirefx.com\/royale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}