The ignored effect of COVID-19 on mental health and development in Ghana.

The world is confused with its current state. Why so? This is attributable to the current pandemonium that the Coronavirus is causing on a global scale. The incessant spread from one country to another, one continent to the other and finally, from one race to another is quite alarming and we’re just tired as humans.

The trending Coronavirus in the world at the moment now which is serving as havoc and impeding the economic fortunes of some countries is even targeted as more damning than the previously recorded Ebola. Originally recorded in China (what has been read online), it’s widely spreading as nothing has ever done.

But, is this one of the coincidental outbreaks in the world or it was strategically manufactured to serve a diabolic agenda like it’s being speculated on social media? The question that begs for answers is why some people will even have that notion of Coronavirus been scientifically engineered by some persons to carry out their selfish interests.

However, the stigma, flames of hysteria, and fear associated with the COVID-19 is the pivot of the impact of the disease. On the 11th of March 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a Pandemic having recorded over 126, 000 morbidities, and 4631 mortalities globally (Source: WHO).

Thus, the COVID-19 virus is fast spreading than initially estimated. The rate of spread of the disease is likely to triple in countries where stigma, flames of hysteria, and fear are common. For example, speaking at Munich Security Conference in Germany, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had this to say “The greatest enemy we face is not the virus itself; it’s the stigma that turns us against each other. We must stop stigma and hate!”

After this COVID-19 brouhaha is finally over, the psychological setting of many people will be forever altered. This is because all those who were stigmatized for contracting this virus or relating to people who tested positive will have a long way to go as to how to shake off the badmouthing and carry out their usual work, school, progress, and other pertinent issues within their daily lives.

Some may probably be required to be confined within a psychiatry establishment because of the emotional trauma they might have faced over the period of the existence of this deadly but invisible enemy.

The unfortunate but hard truth is that some of these peeps that will need psychiatry services may be rejected by families because Ghanaians are equally biased towards mentally ill relatives. This will be a long battle of its own that will need sensitization, mass awareness via demonstrations and even probable legislation to criminalize the act of deliberately sidelining mentally challenged citizens who tested positive for COVID-19.