Coronavirus: Govt officials will publicly take doses of vaccines

The Information Minister-designate has noted that government officials will publicly take doses of the Covid-19 vaccines before the mass vaccination exercise.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that this is to help demystify the public apprehension about the vaccines.

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) will next month begin a mass vaccination exercise with Covid-19 vaccines for selected segments of the population.

The vaccines will first be administered to healthcare workers, frontline security personnel, persons with known underlying medical conditions, 60 plus older persons and frontline members of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary.

The Food and Drugs Authority has, so far, approved AstraZeneca vaccines from India and Sputnik-V vaccines from Russia for mass immunisation in Ghana, starting from March to October.

However, some social media platforms are inundated with videos and photographs of people, who allegedly took Covid-19 vaccines in other jurisdictions and are experiencing side effects such as twisted mouth and nose, which has created fear and panic among a section of the Ghanaian population.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah said at a public engagement on the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out plan in Accra on Friday that some members of government, including himself, would volunteer to publicly take shots of the Covid-19 vaccines to demystify the negative perception.

He said there would be elaborate stakeholder engagements and sustained public sensitisation campaigns by the Ghana Local Service, Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service (GHS), National Commission for Civic Education(NCCE) and Information Services Department (ISD), to educate the public on the upcoming immunisation exercise.

He said health staff from the GHS, ISD and NCCE would visit markets, lorry parks, churches, mosques and other public places, with vans to sensitise the public, explain and answer questions regarding the vaccination exercise.

The Minister-designate urged the mass media to continue partnering government in educating the public on the vaccination programme as well as advocating strict adherence to the Covid-19 safety and preventive protocols.

Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, the Programmes Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Ghana Health Service, said the Covid-19 vaccines the country would soon administer had gone through clinical trial and proved to be safe and efficacious.