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Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, the Minister-designate of Health called on Ghanaians to be ready for the coronavirus vaccination in March of this year.
“We all need to be vaccinated in this country,” he said.
He said it was wrong that the COVID-19 vaccine was developed to kill Africans and that the vaccines to be administered would instead protect the public from the virus.
The minister-designate said this on Friday when the Ministry of Health, the Ghanaian Health Service (GHS) and the Government of Ghana made a public commitment on the COVID-19 vaccination rollout plan in Accra.
Mr Agyeman-Manu said vaccination was not new to the world and Ghana, for example, had successfully eliminated a large number of diseases through the use of vaccines.
He explained, “This is for prevention so that you don’t get infected and even if you do get infected, the severity of the disease won’t get out of hand.”
Currently, the government has requested two different COVID-19 vaccines; Covishield; the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute in India; and the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, made in Russia.
Both are expected to arrive in the country by the end of the month.
He said that while the nation waited for vaccination to start, it was paramount that every Ghanaian adhere to coronavirus prevention protocols.
Mr. Agyemang-Manu said the health ministry would deploy a total of 12,471 vaccinators, 37,413 volunteers and 2,079 team supervisors for a planned two-round vaccination campaign.
Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Managing Director of Ghana Health Service (GHS), said it was time for Ghanaians to focus on how to prepare their bodies’ natural defense against the virus.
He said the available vaccines had been shown to be effective and Ghana needed to break the chain of coronavirus transmission through vaccination.
The Director-General noted that the country has seen a decline in active COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks due to an increase in face mask use among the public.
Dr Delese AA Darko, chief executive of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), said both vaccines were ordered under emergency use authorization; a channel used to ensure that a needed medical product is made available on time without compromising its safety or effectiveness.
“This is to assure the public that everything we need to do to ensure vaccine safety has been done for these two vaccines.”
She said that to further monitor the safety of the vaccine during the campaign, the FDA had implemented a nationwide safety monitoring system to ensure that every person vaccinated was actively monitored for detection and management. any adverse effects in all parts of the country.
Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, program director, Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), said immunization will be done in three segments.
He said the first segment would involve those most at risk, such as; healthcare workers, front-line security personnel, people with medical conditions, front-line members of the executive, legislature and justice, and those aged 60 and over
The second segment would focus on essential service providers and other security agencies such as water and electricity providers, teachers, media, farmers and food value chain actors, among others. .
Dr Amponsa-Achiano said the third segment would be the audience.
Dr Yaw Bediako, head of the West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, said the COVID-19 vaccine was safe and would protect the public from contracting the virus.
He said it would also strengthen the immune system by “training” the system to develop antibodies against the virus.
The program director said 188 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered worldwide and there were very few reports of the reactions.
— GNA
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