The Programmes Manager of the Expanded Program on Immunization of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, has hinted that the Service, as part of its efforts to eradicate COVID-19 completely from the system, is planning on making the jab a routine one.
According to him, affected persons or those who have suspicion of it can walk into any health-care facility and be administered the jab to help curtail it from spreading further.
Dr. Amponsa-Achiano was of the view that the pandemic has not been phased out completely, as many Ghanaians believe.
He observed that many people have given up on the measures that were set out by the Health Ministry to curb the spread of the disease, including the wearing of masks and the washing of hands under running water, among others.
Dr. Amponsa-Achiano made this disclosure during a stakeholder forum as part of the ongoing Phase III of the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability Project (CTAP) on Friday, August 25, 2023, in Accra.
Dubbed “Setting the Agenda for Robust Primary Healthcare in Ghana, the event was organized by BudgIT Ghana, a civic organisation that combines technology and institutional engagements to transform society.
He additionally revealed that the GHS has been able to vaccine over 11.1 million Ghanaians since the pandemic struck and hopes to do more. He said not all the 11.1 million Ghanaians also took a complete dose of the jab and that some of the jabs needed to be administered twice while several others needed to be administered once.
“Nearly 11.1 million have been vaccinated, meaning they’ve taken what we call the primary series; for some of the vaccines, you need two doses; for Johnson and Johnson, you need one, so either they’ve taken Johnson and Johnson, for which reason they have finished the primary series, or they’ve taken two doses of the other drugs, he stated.
While admitting that his team has not reached their target of vaccinating over 30 million Ghanaians, he blamed it on several factors, such as people’s dwindling perception of the risk and the general misinformation about the disease.
“As far as we are concerned, we have gone quite far, even though we haven’t achieved the target. There are multiple reasons, including the fact that people’s perception is no longer there. I mean, risk perception—they think that COVID is gone. That’s the very first thing. There are others who are just not bothered, and it’s not because they think COVID is gone or not. They are just not bothered. There is still some misinformation and disinformation about the vaccine, which is not unexpected, and people are also not well informed”, he added.
He contended that the WHO’s announcement that the disease is no longer a pandemic has also been one of the reasons why Ghanaians are hesitant to take the jab.
In his remarks, the Country Lead at BudgIT Ghana, Felix Ankrah, emphasized how the COVID-19 pandemic significantly exposed the weaknesses in the country’s health care systems and structures.
He thus urged the development of “robust” health care systems to deal with emergency situations in the future.
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