Skip to main content

Nation wide Covid-19 vaccination begins on Wednesday

 GRAPHIC ONLINE


Nationwide COVID-19 vaccination begins on Wednesday

Date: Dec - 10 - 2022 , 07:36
BY: Augustina Tawiah
Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano
Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) will begin a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination for all persons 15 years and above, including pregnant women, from Wednesday, December 14 to Sunday, December 18, this year.

The exercise is targeted at administering about 1.46 million doses of vaccines during the four-day campaign, which is the fifth round of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Days (NaCVaDs) started in February 2022.

At a press conference in Accra yesterday, the Programme Manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, said the strategies adopted for the campaign included outreach services just as was done for childhood immunisations; camp out where the vaccination team moved to island communities and sleep there to do the vaccination.

There would also be vaccination units stationed at the health facilities and modified house-to-house vaccinations.

He said the fifth NaCVaDs had become important to prevent any upsurge with the anticipated influx of people during the festive season.


Furthermore, Dr Amponsa-Achiano said, the fourth campaign was completed with impressive results and the fact that NaCVaDs campaigns had shown to be an additional key strategy that got a lot of persons vaccinated within a short time.

Vaccine doses administered

Touching on COVID-19 vaccines doses that had been administered, he said as of the end of last month, more than 21.17 million doses of vaccines had been administered.

The vaccines include Astra Zeneca, Sputnik, Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Janssen.

As of the same period, the country had received 34.04 million doses, out of which 30.57 million had been distributed, with 3.47 million doses available.

Vaccinated persons

On persons who have been vaccinated, Dr Amponsa-Achiano said more than 12.16 million people had received at least a dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while more than 9.10 million people had been fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 situation

On the COVID-19 situation, the programme manager said the number of positive cases was 171,026, out of which 169,556 had recovered and been discharged, with nine active cases.

There is neither a severe nor critical case of the disease. He, however, said the deaths recorded so far, were 1,461.

Some of the challenges facing the vaccination campaign remain misinformation and disinformation about vaccines; pockets of hesitancy and stretched health workers who were responding to multiple outbreaks, including Marburg, polio, yellow fever and monkey pox.

Festive season

The Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said more people would be coming into the country as the festive season approached, hence the need for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“The best gift you can give your relative this festive season is convincing them to get vaccinated and when they get vaccinated, we all get protected. The teams are already in the field, when you walk into any facility, they will vaccinate you. After the vaccination days, if you want vaccination, you will be given. I want to say that the vaccination period has started,” he said.

The UNICEF Representative to Ghana, Anne-Claire Dufay, said it was important for people to consider COVID-19 vaccination as part of routine immunisation, adding that, that was what was happening worldwide.

“In the same way that we systematically and automatically send our children for polio immunisation, we should also make sure our family members are immunised when it comes to COVID-19 and yellow fever. Let us take the vaccination seriously, if we want to continue to have normal lives and for our loved ones to have normal lives,” she advised.

facebook sharing button
twitter sharing button
sms sharing button
sharethis sharing button
whatsapp sharing button

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DCE Distributes Farming Tools to Boost Agriculture in Twifo Atti Morkwa

 DCE Distributes Farming Tools to Boost Agriculture in Twifo Atti Morkwa The District Chief Executive (DCE) and Member of Parliament of Twifo Atti Morkwa, on behalf of His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, distributed farming tools, including boats and fertilizers, to local farmers. This initiative aims to enhance agricultural productivity and improve the livelihoods of farmers in the district. The DCE's efforts demonstrate the government's commitment to supporting the agricultural sector and promoting economic growth in the region.  He further added at the items giving to the farmers will be monitored by the agriculture director to make sure they are using it. Anyone who will cought by selling his or her tools will be handed over to the police custody  Farmers expressed gratitude to the President and the DCE for the timely intervention, which they believe will significantly impact their farming activities. This initiative is a testament to the government's efforts to promo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fight against Galamsey on River Pra: 4 Arrested, changfan machines, boats destroyed

  Four persons were arrested in an exercise by the Twifo Atti Mokwa District Assembly in the Central Region in collaboration with its police command and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to clamp down on illegal mining activities on the River Pra at Twifo Praso last Tuesday.  The team, led by the police and the District Chief Executive, Robert Agyemang Nyantakyi, burnt five changfan machines, five boats and seized other mining equipment being used by illegal miners on the River Pra. Impact This was in response to the devastating effects of their activities on the River Pra and the environment. Last week, a two-and-a-half-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, tragically lost their lives after falling into an abandoned galamsey pit full of water. The incident occurred at Mokwa, a farming community near Twifo Praso. The incident, according to residents, was one of several in recent years caused by uncovered galamsey pits in the district. The impact of the illegal ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Study finds dangerous cancer-causing chemicals in meats cooked with burnt car tyres

A joint study by the African Centre of Excellence in Public Health and Toxicological Research (ACEPUTOR), University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, has revealed alarming levels of cancer-causing chemicals in meats singed using tyres. Published in the journal Environmental Health Insights, the study found that meats singed with tyres contain high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), particularly a harmful chemical called Benzo[a]pyrene, which is known to increase the risk of cancer. Highest risk from tyre-singed meats Led by Prosper Manu Abdulai from ACEPUTOR, the research involved testing meats singed with tyres, firewood, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Ghana’s five largest cities: Kumasi, Accra, Koforidua, Tamale, and Ho. The researchers collected 180 samples of cattle and goat meat and found that meats singed with tyres contained the highest levels of PAHs, with some exceeding regulatory limit...
Post a Comment
Read more