Vaccines over the years have been proven to be one of the effective ways to tackle diseases in the world.
Vaccination is a simple, safe, and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases, before they come into contact with them.
Some vaccines for diseases such as Hepatitis B (HepB) (2nd dose), Diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (pertussis), Hemophilic influenza type B disease Polio (IPV), Pneumococcal disease and Rotavirus among others have helped to protect children against such diseases.
In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, many lives were lost world wide due to the absence of medicines and vaccines.
The pandemic took the world by surprise, but nearly a year, researchers in the medical field have come out with various vaccines.
Each COVID-19 vaccine causes the immune system to create antibodies to fight the virus. COVID-19 vaccines use a harmless version of a spike-like structure on the surface of the COVID-19 virus
So far,
On February, 24 2021,
According to the
Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, Programme Manager, Expanded Programme of Immunization, GHS in an interview, says7,510,586 persons have fully been vaccinated whiles1,192,595 persons have received first dose and 1,192,595 have received booster dose.
Out of 17,409,005 Covid-19 vaccines that have been administered to Ghanaians, 10, 096, 925 are
According to
Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, advised those
"To protect yourself, get vaccinated and continue practicing the other protective behaviors against COVID-19," he advised.
Dr. Amponsa-Achiano said there was the need for those
This according to him would help prevent the spread of the disease and also save lives.
He explained that there were enough boosters for every Ghanaian, and urged everyone
He expressed worry about those
Dr. Amponsa-Achiano said the ease of COVID-19 restrictions might have contributed to low participation in the vaccine intake, adding that, since the ban was lifted, people have stopped wearing nose masks, whilst others did not want to go for the vaccine because they think the virus is no more.
"COVID-19 is a virus that changes form and normally if a virus has many copies of the genetic materials, they can come back in different variances and they can reassert with other viruses and change form completely," he said.
He said his outfit in December carried out a vaccination exercise where up to three million vaccines were administered, but it went down in January due to lack of campaign.
"Because December was the month of vaccination, we went up to three million and it went down in January and when we did the campaign in February it went up again. So, it is clear that anytime we have a campaign, it goes up," he said.
Dr. Amponsa-Achiano said the exercise had helped a lot in educating the public about the virus and the need to take vaccines.
"For our next campaign, we will target 2 million instead of 2.5 million does, because, for the first campaign, we were over-ambitious and set a high target of 2.5 million doses but we got 2.1 million doses, which were quite okay but it has been coming down gradually ever since. So, for our next campaign, the target will be 2 million instead of 2.5 million doses," he explained.
"The campaigns have helped a lot because, anytime we organise a campaign, we begin to see the results within five to 10 days," he added.
"For the whole of May, we were doing about 545 and if we embark on a campaign and within 10 days, we get about a million, then, obviously, the campaigns are helping," he said.
According to, Dr. Amponsa-Achiano, Upper West region is the only fully vaccinated region, followed by
He said
He advised the public against misconceptions and conspiracy theories flying on the media space about the vaccines and urged them take the vaccines to remain safe and healthy.
However, she told the paper that, after mustering the courage to go for the second dose, she never had any adverse reactions.
According to Abena Odamea, a Civil Servant, believes vaccines are not harmful because even babies receive different kinds of vaccines as they grow and nothing bad happens to them. So, I advise everybody to and get vaccinated to protect themselves and their families.
Copyright Ghanaian Times. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source