The Institute of ICT Professionals Ghana (IIPGH), on Thursday, said the new mobile telephony technology called 5G has no connection with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as being speculated.
The Association, in a statement signed by Mr David Gowu, the Executive Director and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said 5G does not spread COVID-19.
The Association, therefore, urged the public to disregard the conspiracy theories linking the new technology to the deadly pandemic.
The statement explained that 5G was a technology to provide an extra-large pipe of the internet to connect mobile phones and other devices with 10 times the current speed and data volume being provided by 4G.
It said 5G was a technology designed to carry voice and big data using non-ionizing electromagnetic wave as a means of transport over the air interface to devices.
?These devices are mainly electronic devices and not human beings,? it said.
Non-ionizing electromagnetic wave in this context is the range of frequencies (3KHz – 300GHz) on the electromagnetic spectrum that cannot cause harm to the human tissue/cell/DNA when exposed to the radiation, it said.
FM Radio Frequencies (87MHz – 108MHz), Television Frequencies (700MHz), Mobile network frequencies such as 1G (150MHz – 900MHz), 2G (900MHz – 1.8GHz), 3G (1.6GHz – 2.0GHz), 4G (2GHz – 8GHz) and 5G (2GHz – 300GHz) are examples, the statement said.
It explained that COVID-19, on the other hand, was a zoonotic disease caused by a pathogen that jumped from non-human animals (usually vertebrates) to humans and then spread from human to human.
It said Pangolin-like animal was suspected to have transmitted this string of the virus called the novel coronavirus.
The statement said the novel coronavirus was biological and could be transferred from one person to the other through the mouth, nose and eyes when one came into contact with an infected person.
The infected patient, who may be asymptomatic or symptomatic, can transfer the virus to another person when droplets of fluids containing the virus are spread through coughing, sneezing or spitting into the air or surfaces.
Source: GNA