Ghana Health Service to deploy 12,500 vaccinators for national exercise

General news for Friday 19 February 2021

Source: FM class

2021-02-19

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has announced that it will deploy around 12,500 vaccinators for the next national COVID-19 immunization exercise.

This was revealed during a public engagement on the COVID-19 vaccination deployment plan held on Friday, February 19, 2021 in Accra.

According to the GHS, based on the vaccine safety profile, it has targeted around 20 million people to be vaccinated as part of the exercise, which is scheduled to start in early March.

Program Manager, Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), Ghana Health Service, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, said: “Ultimately the vision is to immunize the entire population, but for the At the moment, the initial goal based on the safety profile of the vaccines, we are targeting around 20 million people and these people are health workers according to segmentation, people with highlighted health problems.

“Security personnel, other essential service providers, people over 60, students in secondary and higher education, teachers of all levels, specialist groups, the executive, the legislature and MDAs, the media and of course the rest of the population will receive the COVID -19 vaccines. “

He noted that the GHS will use a set of delivery strategies for the immunization exercise.

“Fixed clinics, existing hospitals, health centers, clinics, both public and private, also offer proximity services depending on the region, because there will be temporary mobile clinics where people go to be vaccinated. and move to the next location.

“We are looking at the Greater Accra Metro, the Grand Kumasi Metro, and of course the West will be next,” said Dr Amponsa-Achiano.

He also indicated that the exercise will require enormous human resources.

“We need a lot of vaccinators for this exercise, so we plan to train about 12,500 vaccinators and almost 40,000 volunteers with just over 2,000 team supervisors. These will be used for both rounds 1 and 2 of the campaign. Remember that vaccines are given in two doses.

“We have planned training for the vaccination teams to ensure quality,” added the head of the Expanded Program on Immunization at GHS.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 23rd update to the nation on measures his government has put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 said the country should receive its first round of vaccines by now the end of the first quarter of 2021.