Senior Research fellow at Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), Dr Kofi Bonney, has disclosed that the vaccination record of the country is inadequate.

According to him, it is imperative for the public to adhere to COVID protocol in the wake of the third wave in the country.

Mr Bonney further explained that although government has a role to play, individuals must adhere to the safety guidelines in order to attain herd immunity.

“I always say that if we take it upon ourselves to make sure that we keep to the protocol… we will have the chance of getting rid of the virus. A lot depends on us as individual, though the government has a role to play. If you talk about our vaccination record, it’s woefully inadequate, but I know the government is trying to do something. Yes, they are doing that but, we also have a role to play. We have to make sure that we keep to the measures in place. It is as simple as that.

“The virus, the way it is, if we are able to stop its spread, then we will be able to contain the virus. But if we don’t do that, then we can have several waves ahead because so long as the thing keeps circulating in the population, then we are going to have new variants. The new variants can be better or they can be worse. So, that is what I think is our fate. We need to keep to the measures; if we keep to those measures I think we’ll be smiling at the end of the day”.
Kofi Bonney

Surge in COVID cases

Touching on the surge in cases due to lack of compliance to the safety guidelines, Mr Bonney noted that a lot of people are not “keeping to the protocols that is why we are here now”.

“We are here now because we are simply not adhering to the protocol. It’s unfortunate that we also have a virus on our hands which can easily mutate and take on new forms. So, we have a variant that maybe is more adaptable, transmissible and spreads faster. If we are keeping to the measures we know, I think the level of spread will not be as we are seeing it.

“We will keep having the virus mutate so long as it’s circulating in the population. But, we on our part can let the spread go down if we keep to the simple measures that we have in place”.
Kofi Bonney

Fumigation of public places

Touching on fumigation of public places which yielded great results in the early days of the pandemic, Emma Adwoa Appiah, Director of Communications for Zoomlion, revealed that her outfit is “ever ready” to take on the task.

She indicated that, her team are well prepared to rise to the challenge by resorting to the use of effective chemicals in disinfecting.

“We have prepared ourselves, we have equipment, trained our personnel, given them PPEs so that anytime we have to move, we are moving. One thing I would want to say is that it played a very significant role, the disinfection in curbing the menace earlier. So, now that we have a stronger version that is wreaking havoc, we have also resorted to getting new chemicals that are stronger and also human friendly.

“If people are not adhering to the protocols… then what we can do is to do the spraying so that the residual effect will hold in the atmosphere. If infected people are around or not, we assure that there’s something that is preventing it from spreading”.
Emma Adwoa Appiah