By Linda Naa Deide Aryeetey
Accra, Dec.09, GNA – The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has declared Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 December 2022 as National COVID-19 Vaccination Days (NVD) to increase COVID-19 vaccination during the yuletide.
The upcoming NVD campaign which is the fifth of its kind is targeted at administering 1.4 million doses of vaccines to unvaccinated person in the country.
Pregnant women and all persons aged 15 years and above are eligible to receive the jab.
Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service who launched the campaign in Accra on Friday, said the move was an effort to bring the country closer to herd immunity.
During the campaign period, approximately 6000 vaccination teams will be deployed across the length and breadth of the country, employing both static and close-to-client strategies to reach the unreached.
Vaccinations will be done in all government hospitals across the country, schools, marketplaces, churches, mosque and in homes.
Dr Aboagye said during the last four NVD campaign series, the dynamics of vaccine distribution and level of vaccination became positively correlated with total vaccine receipts, saying, ‘as vaccine receipt quantities increased, vaccine distribution and level of vaccinations increased commensurate.”
He said during the first campaign in December 2021, 2.9 million doses were administered after which the total monthly administered doses dipped to as low as 671 thousand in March 2022.
“The second, third and fourth series of the campaign days have yielded positive results, moving the total number of administered doses from 13.8 million doses as of end of April 2022 to some 21 million doses at the end of November 2022,” he said.
The Director General said currently, over 12 million people in Ghana had received at least a dose of COVID -19 vaccine with over 9 million fully immunised, but the end is far from sight since the disease is unpredictable and a larger proportion of the vaccine eligible population remain unvaccinated.
He called on eligible persons who are yet to vaccinate to get vaccinated now, especially as the festive season approaches
“Vaccination remains the most effective protection against the COVID-19 disease, the vaccines are safe, effective and free, prevent severe illnesses, hospitalization and death,” he said.
Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, Programme Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunisation, GHS, said vaccination was now the mainstay of COVID-19 prevention..
“The National COVID-19 Vaccination Campaigns have shown to be an additional key strategy that gets a lot of persons vaccinated within a short time, four of such campaigns have been completed with impressive results,” he said.
Dr Amponsa-Achiano said the fifth is due as Ghana moved into the festive season where an influx of gathering was anticipated.
He emphasised that COVID-19 vaccines could and did protect most people from hospitalisation and death, which is why many doses were need to be administered around the world as rapidly, and equitably, as possible.
National COVID-19 Vaccination Days campaigns have worked as an effective strategy of improving COVID-19 vaccination coverage within a short time
Dr Amponsa-Achiano said Misinformation, Disinformation and pockets of hesitancy had been a major challenge in getting more persons vaccinated especially in the Southern parts of the country.
GNA