COVID-19 Vaccine: No Ghanaian Will Be Left Behind-Dr Dacosta Assures

Director of Health Promotion at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Dacosta Aboagye says every Ghanaian will benefit from the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as the country gets hold of the vaccine.

According to him, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has established various teams to work on how to get the COVID-19 Vaccine and deploy in order for every Ghanaian to benefit from it.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Dr Dacosta Aboagye noted that the various teams are currently at the preparatory stage for a way to get the COVID-19 Vaccine as promised by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

“We are doing our preparation as a country to get the COVID-19 Vaccine to protect our citizens…no Ghanaian will be left behind and so it means that when we get the vaccine, every Ghanaian will benefit from the vaccine. We are currently at the preparatory stage looking for a way to get the vaccine”, he assured.

He indicated that the Public Health and the Health Promotion departments at the Ghana Health Service are putting measures up so as to get the COVID-19 Vaccine; thus, they will know how to share the vaccine.

“We are still deliberating on how to distribute the COVID-19 Vaccine and it will be done based on the data generated by the Ghana Health Service during the pandemic. If you look at our data in terms of the disease state and in terms of death, you will realise that there are variants. The common population that gets the disease or the infection is between 20 to 49”, he indicated.

He said that the team is recommending to the government that the first line of people to get vaccinated will be the health workers because they are always exposed to the virus; thus, they will also look at the persons with underlying morbidities.

“Persons who have hypertension, diabetes, or even cancers will be looked at; they will be the most likely group and we will look at the aged, the people more than 60 years”, he mentioned.

He explained that Ghana is looking at several options of the vaccine from different facilities. Some of these are the Covax, Chinese and Russia facilities. But currently, the country has made a submission to the Covax facility.

He explained that the Covax facility is made up of key stakeholders such as; WHO, UNICEF, all the key development partners who have put together this facility to ensure that member states are able to get some minimum number of vaccine doses.

Dr Dacosta Aboagye disclosed that the Covax facility gives countries vaccines to a tune of about 20 per cent of their population; stressing that a country like Ghana will get up to about 6 million of the COVID-19 Vaccine.