Kumasi: Over 60% of rescued foreign child beggars infected with HIV; TB and Covid

After medical screening, ten of fifteen foreign child beggars rescued by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) tested positive for HIV, Tuberculosis, and COVID-19.

A joint task force of the Social Welfare department and the Assembly led by Chief Executive Officer Samuel Pyne snatched these underprivileged children from the streets in a single swoop.

These were mostly children brought in from Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger to beg for alms along Kumasi’s streets and major traffic intersections.

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The Kumasi Mayor told Kojo Marfo on Abusua FM’s Morning Show “Abusua Nkomo” that the issue had become difficult because no private home was equipped to accept the children.

“We needed to deal with them by taking them to a private home but do you think they will be glad to take such children having these conditions? They do not have any isolation or holding centers to deal with these cases,” he empathized.

Since the Kumasi Children’s Home now falls under the jurisdiction of the Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly, Sam Pyne indicated that his organization was in constant contact with the Regional Security Council to lobby for a state-owned shelter in Kumasi.

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“If you care to know, we don’t even have a shelter in Kumasi now. What we used to have in the Kumasi Children’s Home, has been taken over by Asokore Mampong because of the demarcation in the creation of that municipality,” Mr. Pyne bemoaned.

He was also concerned that ECOWAS protocols prohibited Ghana from repatriating the children, instead directing them to hospitals for treatment.

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Mr. Pyne also warned residents who house illegal immigrants and their children to stop doing so, revealing that all of the foreigners had unexpectedly moved out of a specific hideout when the joint Metro taskforce and the police recently conducted a swoop.

Meanwhile, orphanages have refused to accept the children because they are HIV positive.