The initial phase of Ghana’s national coronavirus vaccine deployment exercise will exclude women and children, the Government has announced.
The Ghanaian Government launched its national coronavirus vaccine deployment plan in the national capital, Accra, on Friday, February 19, 2021.
Presenting the plan to key stakeholders at a public engagement organized by government at the Alisa Hotel in Accra, Dr Kwame Amponso-Achiano, Programme Manager for the Expanded Programme on Immunization, Ghana Health Service (GHS), announced that distribution strategies for the Coronavirus Vaccine would be based on segmentation of the population.
According to him, ultimately, the entire population is considered in the plan.
However, he said the initial target of 20 million persons will include: health workers, persons with underlying health conditions, security personnel, other essential service providers, persons above 60 years, second cycle and tertiary students, teachers at all levels, specialized groups on national assignments, Executive/Legislature/Judiciary/MDAs, Media.
According to him, the delivery strategy include static, outreach, mobile, campout or combination.
He explained that vaccination will be expanded to include children and pregnant women as time goes on and more safety data become available.
Justifying why pregnant women and children were excluded from the first phase of the exercise, he said for pregnant women, considerations were being made for the safety of the children they were carrying.
He stated emphatically that it was better to err on the side of safety.
Public Engagement
Delivering his welcome remarks at the public engagement Minister-designate for Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, announced that the Ghaian government was working with various stakeholders to see how all Ghanaians can buy into the vaccination Programme.
According to him, the vaccine was for prevention of infections and was therefore necessary for everyone to embrace it.
Mr Agyemang-Manu said Ghana have success stories as far as using vaccines to prevent diseases such as polio, saying vaccine shouldn’t be a new thing for us.
He noted that there was the need to “fight the battle” of Coronavirus “together,” recountinh how Ghana was doing well in bringing its Coronavirus but has fallen again.
He observed that “we are in a place where non of us thought we will be when it comes to Covid19.”
Update
Giving an update of the Coronavirus situation in Ghana, Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, disclosed that Ghana was recording averagely 500 to 750 cases per day.
According to him, covid cases at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) have continued to declined significantly.
14 regions have reported sporadic Covid19 outbreaks in schools, the GHS Director General revealed.
Represented at the public engagement were the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association, Coalition of NGOs in Health, Food and Drugs Authority, Ghana Pharmaceutical Society.
Ghana is expected to receive its first batch of vaccines in March 2021 and the remaining batches latest by June, this year.
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