Accra, July 28, GNA-Dr Aboagye Da Costa, Director, Health Promotion Division, Ghana Health Service, says the COVID-19 vaccines in the Government’s custody, are safe and effective and advised the public to ignore misconceptions surrounding the vaccines.
He urged the public to go for the jabs, stressing that the vaccines were key intervention towards containing the pandemic.
Dr Da Costa said this in Accra at the closing ceremony of a two-day Trainer of Trainers Workshop on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Ghana: Promoting Vaccine Uptake Among Nurses and Midwives and the General Public.
The programme was organized by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Medical Association with support from Resolve to Save Lives, a global health organisation.
He said the training programme was to empower the health professionals to change the dynamics of vaccine uptake, stressing, “we have to set an example for the public to follow.”
Dr Da Costa stated that the country could not lag behind in vaccine acceptance, adding that the participants would serve as ambassadors for their peers and for the public.
He said the project sought to transform about 2,000 health care professionals, hoping it was the beginning of reaching out to the population and diffusing the myth about vaccines.
Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, President, GRNMA, said the 79 health participants were trained as “vaccine champions” on issues of the vaccines, the misconceptions surrounding the vaccines and how to address the myth and other COVID-19 related matters.
“Our objective is to train the participants to be empowered and go back to their districts, subdistricts, regions to address the concerns of those who have not vaccinated yet,” she said.
She said data revealed that some health professionals in the country had not taken their second shot, while the majority had not taken their bolster doses, “which is not the best because they must serve as role models for the public.”
“We have trained them to act as vaccine champions in the regions to educate our own colleagues to take the jabs and influence the communities in which they work to also accept the vaccines and take the jabs,” she said.
She said the overall target was to have 21 million of the population vaccinated and that currently the country had vaccinated about 17 million and that there was a lot to be done.
Mrs Ofori-Ampofo advised the public to get vaccinated and adhere to the COVID-19 health protocol especially with the outbreak of Marburg virus disease, monkey pox and other influenza infections.
Mrs Hannah Oparebea Acquah, Rector, Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives, encouraged the participants to apply the knowledge acquired at the workshop in their various communities to reduce the spread of the virus.
In a related development, the GRNMA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Reckitts Ghana, a consumer goods giant which produces Dettol and Nurofen, to encourage good hygiene in hospitals, communities, and homes.
GNA