The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has launched a five-day nationwide campaign to boost the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and accelerate efforts at attaining herd immunity in the country.
Scheduled from Wednesday, February 2 to Sunday, February 6, 2022 the exercise targets vaccinating at least 2.5 million people to inch the country closer to the goal of having 60 percent of the population fully vaccinated by the end of the first quarter, this year.
What has become an instituted policy to drive the COVID-19 vaccination agenda henceforth, the “National COVID-19 Vaccination Days”, are expected to allow for the subsequent review of restrictions and help restore life and the economy to normalcy.
At the launch in Accra yesterday, on the theme; “Protect yourself, protect your family. Get vaccinated against COVID-19 now,” the event brought together key stakeholders; development partners, civil society, religious groups and traditional leaders, to garner support for the national exercise.
Programme Manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Dr Kwame Amponsah-Achiano, in a presentation, said, 6,000 vaccination teams breaking into 30,000 health community workers and volunteers and 1,500 supervisors, are being deployed under the campaign.
He said vaccinators would use static, mobile, camp-out and other intensified outreach strategies to get people immunised against COVID-19 projecting each team to vaccinate at least 85 persons per day during the five-day period.
“We are going to ensure visibility of the teams and mobilise all sectors, stakeholders, partners and communities in a concerted efforts towards achieving national vaccination target,” he said.
Alongside the vaccination, Dr Amponsah-Achiano said the Service would employ the communication and social mobilisation strategies including airing of jingles, vaccination songs, sharing educative materials, appoint COVID-19 ambassadors and intensified media programmes, to fight misinformation and misconceptions on the vaccines.
The Programme Manager appealed to stakeholders to support the vaccination campaign by assisting in advocacy and education on the safety of the vaccines and its importance to protecting lives.
“We urge that you assist improve the vaccination drive and access to the vaccines for COVID-19 prevention. Seek correct information from the appropriate sources; the GHS, Ministry of Health and its partners on the vaccines and help disseminate facts to debunk the rumours on the vaccines,” he pleaded.
The Director-General, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye in a remark, said myths, misconceptions and the perception that people were at low risk of being infected with COVID-19 was fuelling hesitancy and low uptake of the vaccines.
He said it was in vein of this that the GHS and its partners was determined to employ all means possible to fight such myths and encourage uptake of the vaccines to protect the citizenry.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye insisted that the COVID-19 vaccines were safe and effective against infection adding that, “everyone must avail themselves to getting vaccinated if we want to have our normal lives back.”
For her part, the Deputy Minister of Health, Tina NaaAyeley Mensah, reminded the public of the availability of booster vaccines especially for key populations and other frontline workers hinting that implementation of the vaccine mandate would initially focus on such persons.
“We must continue to stand together to tackle what is the greatest public health challenge of a generation,” she urged.
Meanwhile, data from the GHS indicates that little over 10 million persons have so far been vaccinated.
It states that 13.2 million of the targeted 20 million are still unvaccinated with 3.7 million people, partially vaccinated.
Ghana has reviewed its eligibility criteria for COVID-19 immunisation to include pregnant women and all persons 15 years and above.
BY ABIGAIL ANNOH AND SAMUEL GYASI ODURO