A former Minister of Health, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, has urged government to intensify education on the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to Yieleh Chireh, government must resume its engagements on the vaccine to dispel misinformation and doubts towards the vaccine.
“When you ask people to take a jab to prevent this virus, I don’t think that it’s a simple matter and that’s why I’m calling for more engagements and more explanations. In the beginning, the President [Akufo-Addo] was talking to us (Ghanaians) very frequently and then also, there were interactions with the general public through the media, I think that needs to be intensified.”
Joseph Yieleh Chireh
The former Health Minister stated that one thing the government needs to look out for is people with knowledge to talk about the vaccination. He indicated that in a pandemic situation like this, there will always be a difficulty where people deliberately mislead others insisting on certain rights that they cannot enjoy.
“So, if there was any difficulty in using the vaccine, many more people wouldn’t have been using it.”
Joseph Yieleh Chireh
His comments come after a group named Concerned Ghanaian Doctors petitioned President Akufo-Addo over the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the country. The group noted in a statement that it disagrees with the government on mandatory vaccination, saying there are many unanswered questions in terms of its efficacy, necessity, and safety.
GHS Director on vaccination
Meanwhile, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has asked Ghanaians to ignore the petition by the Concerned Doctors requesting a halt of the vaccination process as he described their petition as “without basis”.
The Health Director urged the citizenry to go for the jabs to stem the spread of the disease and adhere to the safety protocols. He disclosed that as of January 10, 2022, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has administered a total of 9, 004, 025 COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye disclosed that science and data has shown that the vaccines had been helpful, adding that, “we will continue to engage and educate to ensure more people vaccinate”.
According to Dr. Kumah Aboagye, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has recorded 88 COVID-19 Omicron deaths between December 2021 and January 2022, despite the decline in positive cases.
The Director General of the GHS, stated that in December 2021, a total of 64 deaths were recorded with the remaining 24 recorded as of 13th January 2022. The Health Director disclosed that apart from the Omicron variant, Delta and Alpha variant cases were also being recorded.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye posited that the country was in the fourth wave of the pandemic and was hopeful that the decline in active cases would be a signal to gradually end the wave.
“This is the steepest wave the country had experienced, recording over 1,000 cases in a day.”
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye
Data on the GHS COVID-19 update website indicate that the number of active cases has reduced from 13,025 to 10,889 as of 8th January 2022. The update indicates that a total of 152,729 cases have been confirmed with 1, 336 deaths and seven in critical condition.
