The Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr. Nsiah-Asare, has intimated that the roll out for the second dose of vaccines will be done according to a schedule.
Speaking on the vaccine administration, he revealed that the Ghana Health Service will schedule persons who took the first jab to take the second according to the date they received the first jab.
“What we are going to do is that, we are going to schedule people to come for the second dose. Luckily for us we kept the data of all those who took the first dose. You remember the first dose started with the President, his spouse and other dignitaries. So, we are going to follow the same pattern. We will send SMS bulk messages to people who are due to come for their vaccines.”
Dr. Nsiah-Asare
Dr. Nsiah-Asare noted that his outfit will in a meeting today review the Ghana Health Services’ plan for the roll-out and make it public to the people.
Moreover, he posited the new roll out will follow the new scientific findings of having higher potency than eight weeks. He said those in the first batch will go in for the vaccine first since they are nearing the 12 weeks ultimatum.
“You know Ghana Health Service came out to give the timeline between the first and second dose between 8 to 12 weeks. And the new scientific finding too is that, the nearer you are to 12 weeks the better.
“We are going to roll it out to those who took it from the 1st to about the 10th of March because they are nearing the 12 weeks. And then the next batch will also go.”
Dr. Nsiah-Asare
Government working to acquire extra vaccines
The Health Advisor then revealed that government is working to acquire other doses for the rest of the people who took the first vaccine. He said the country needs about 1 million doses to cover all those who took the first dose since they have already rolled out over 900,000 vaccines as first dose.
Speaking on how to get extra vaccines supplies, he noted that government is looking at multiple sources to get the vaccine. Dr. Nsiah-Asare stated that one of the sources which is COVAX, is working to ensure that countries get their remaining vaccines.
“Most of the COVAX vaccines was from Covashield in India and you now the problems in India. But what I know is that, COVAX facility together with African Union and World Health Organization are looking elsewhere. We know and we read from the news that US has about 50 million doses of AstraZeneca supply which they are not using. I know that there are negotiations going on for them to release some to COVAX, India and then Mexico.”
Dr. Nsiah-Asare
AU in talks with European countries
Dr. Nsiah-Asare further averred that the African Union is also in talks with European countries who are not using the AstraZeneca vaccines to release them. The government of Ghana, he said, is also in bilateral talks with other nations to ensure they have facilities to also fall on.
The Health Advisor also assured that government is on course to receive 1.5 million Sputnik-V vaccines as earlier indicated by the President. He stated that 300,00 of the doses will arrive in the country very soon with another 700,000 to follow up later.
He further disclosed government is planning to secure about 15 million doses to cater for another section of the country.
