Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director-General of the Ghana Health Services (GHS), said the service would devise innovative tactics to involve Ghanaians in order to minimize the incidence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
Due to many people’s unwillingness to take the COVID-19 vaccination, large amounts of vaccines delivered to various regions of the country have expired.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye told Citi News that the GHS would increase its efforts to get more citizens vaccinated.
He also said that the GHS would continue to engage Ghanaians in order to guarantee that the vaccinations are administered smoothly.
“There is some form of reluctance in the taking of the vaccines, and I will say it is not only in the Volta Region, it’s also across the regions. So it is about the strategy and the engagement of the people because the more we continue to engage, the more the people take the vaccines.”
Vaccines expire in Volta Region
Due to vaccination reluctance in the Volta Region, large supplies of COVID-19 vaccines have expired.
According to the Ghana Health Service in the region, vaccines that went to waste during the previous immunization program in the region were much higher than the national average.
“For the last campaign we had, the wastage we had was close to 10 percent which was way beyond the national average,” the Deputy Director in charge of Public Health, Dr Senanu Djokoto, said to Citi News.
He emphasized that this was “unacceptable because one vaccine dose is $15, so if that much is going to expire, that is a lot of money lost for the country.”
The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, also used his address to the nation on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, to dispel misunderstandings about vaccines.
The vaccines, he claims, are safe and will not cause anybody to vote for the New Patriotic Party in the 2024 elections.
As a result, he urged Ghanaians to be vaccinated.
“So far, we have been able to administer only six million, four hundred and twenty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three (6,420,973) doses out of the 17.7 million we have at our disposal. Let me state, as clearly as I can. The vaccines are safe.”
“They will not harm you. They will protect you and your family. Contrary to the mischief being peddled by some, getting vaccinated will not cause you to vote for the NPP in the 2024 elections if you do not want to. This is an outrageous claim. Vaccination cannot change your political preferences. That is not its purpose.”
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