The Deputy Volta Regional Health Director, Dr. Kwesi Dzokoto, has described as an issue of major concern the hesitancy by the Volta Regional residents to take the vaccine.
He indicated that the refusal of the residents to get vaccinated will contribute to putting more people at risk of being affected with the virus.
Dr. Dzokoto averred that comparing the region’s statistics to the rest of the country, there is a lot more of work that has to be done in the region to be able to match up to the expectations and vision of the Ghana Heath Service in terms of COVID-19 vaccination.
“So to the extent that we are not getting very close to our objective of vaccinating 70 percent of the population and to the extent that that could mean that the virus will still be circulating in the environment and to the extent that more people can still get COVID-19 and more people can fall to COVID-19 is something that is of major concern to all of us in the Volta Region”.
Dr. Kwesi Dzokoto
Dr. Dzokoto disclosed that some regions have done close to 55 percent, with others having done 30 percent. So far, the Volta Region, he disclosed, has done only 14 percent. A situation he described as one that is of some concerns.
“In the last vaccination exercise, you know it is the objective of every health directorate or organization to be able to reduce wastage to the barest minimum. So as hard as we tried, we still had wastage of the vaccines that came in”.
Dr. Kwesi Dzokoto
Expired vaccines have caused loss
Dr. Kwesi Dzokoto revealed that at a point, the health directorate was dealing with about 170,000 doses and that was quite significant especially comparing it to the national average. He lamented that the reduction in the vaccination and the expiration of the vaccines have caused some financial loss to the country.
“One dose of vaccine is about $15. So, if you want to multiply $15 by 10,000, that is a lot of money that has gone down the drain and its just because of our inability to have vaccinated at a rate that we should have done”
Dr. Kwesi Dzokoto
About 10 percent of the COVID-19 vaccine sent to the Volta Region to be administered have expired and this the Ghana Health Service says is a worrying situation. This is as a result of the vaccination hesitancy among residents of the Volta region. director
According to the Volta Regional Health Directorate, a total of 5 million people were targeted to receive COVID-19 jabs. However, the results achieved is no where near the target. According to them, about 180,000 residents have taken their first dose with a 156,000 done with taking the two jabs.
Support health workers
Dr. Dzokoto appealed to everybody to support the good work that the Health workers are doing so that they will be able to reach all the people with vaccines for them to accept it for the good of the Volta Region and Ghana.
Touching on the reasons for the hesitancy being experienced, Dr. Dzokoto disclosed that there are numerous reasons with the most prominent ones being the components of the vaccine and complacency on the part of the residents.
“Some have really bought into the conspiracy theories going round. And so, sometimes you will have people showing you videos of how others are saying that they are not good. For some of them, time has proven them wrong”.
Dr. Kwesi Dzokoto
Dr. Dzokoto then expressed that his outfit is working tirelessly to ensure that the vaccines are administered in the region.
