The Member of Parliament for Asawase, Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka, has asked the Ministry of Health to intervene immediately to ascertain the cause of the deaths of some students at the Kumasi Academy Senior High School.
Three more students of the school in the Ashanti Region have been confirmed dead.
The latest report on Tuesday, 5 December, means a total of six students have passed away in the latest tragedy that has struck the school.
The recent three; two females and a male, died at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) hospital, the Ashanti Regional Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Cassandra Twum Ampofo confirmed to Graphic Online.
25 more students are on admission at the KNUST hospital with authorities unable to determine the cause of deaths.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Muntaka said: “Mr Speaker, by June 2017, we had lost seven students and several of the students were hospitalised and later discharged. When this happened in March and June, the Ministry of Health through the Municipal Directorate of Health and the National Division of Surveillance were on site to pick blood samples and, so, we all thought that was the end, but shockingly, on 29th of November just last week, seventeen students from this same Kumasi Academy were affected.
“There is really fear and panic by students, by parents, by the school authority and the whole constituency because this is a school that is having over 2000 population in a constituency that has averagely about 400,000 people.
“The fear now is, should the school be closed down? If it is closed down and students move into the general population while we do not determine the causal agent of this problem, it might create a problem, if you keep them and you also don’t know what the challenges are, how do you treat it? It is more scary and worrying that parents are running to take their children from the school.”
He added: “I think the Minister of Health should tell us what truly are the causes of these mysterious deaths, especially when it is only boys that are dying even though the school is a mixed school.
“What is truly happening over there, we all don’t know. It happened in March and it is happening now and we are still suspecting. I thought by now we should be able to determine exactly what the cause is and the measures that can be dealt with.”
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