By Edward Williams
Ho, Aug. 30, GNA-The COVID-19 vaccination in the Volta region is not only one of the lowest rates in the country but also falls short of the 70 per cent target needed to protect the entire population from the disease.
Only 538,195 persons out of the 1,113,194 target population representing 48.3 per cent were fully vaccinated up to date in the region despite the positive numerous rollouts of the vaccination campaigns.
This was revealed during a stakeholders’ engagement and second-quarter risk communication sub-committee meeting towards demand generation and vaccine uptake in Ho.
Dr Chrysantus Kubio, Volta Regional Director of Health Service, in his address, said fortunately, over three years of implementation of COVID-19 vaccination had proven that the reality of myths, misconceptions, misinformation, rumours and disinformation about vaccines were all false.
He said over the past years, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) had implemented various programmes and projects to boost vaccine uptake and improve health outcomes, including routine immunization, mass vaccination campaigns, Child Health Promotion Week, African Vaccination Week, social mobilization, and advocacy.
“The National Covid-19 Vaccination Days campaign has been added to achieve herd immunity”, he added.
Dr Kubio said though the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), the virus still posed a significant global health hazard.
He said it was therefore important that they continued with the vaccination drive to ensure the protection of the entire population.
Dr Kubio assured that they would continue to deploy the Covid-19 vaccine as the Service planned to integrate it into routine vaccination adding that everyone from the age of 15 years and above was eligible and should be motivated to utilize the advantage of the exercise.
He said it was the hope that all stakeholders would collaborate with the Ghana Health Service to ensure demand generation and acceptance of vaccination campaigns while urging them to use their influence to advocate COVID-19 and routine childhood vaccination and all the other helpful health interventions to prevent future disease outbreaks.
Ghana began its Covid-19 vaccination campaign on March 1, 2021, with 11 mass Covid-19 vaccination campaigns conducted so far.
As of July 2024, a total of 14,978,021 persons representing 70.2 per cent of the 21.3 million targeted had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 11,997,186 representing 56.2 per cent of the 21.3 million target population had received two doses while close to seven million persons had received booster doses.
GNA