The Ghana Health Service (GHS) is backing the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) to dismiss a group of doctors who are claiming that the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination exercise should be halted.
According to the GHS, contrary to what the ‘Concerned Doctors’ are saying, existing local data shows that the Covid-19 vaccine is potent and has contributed to the low level of hospitalization and deaths in the country.
The GHS said even though the country experienced an exponential surge in recorded Covid-19 cases, deaths and hospitalization resulting from Covid-19 has been minimal due to the mass vaccination.
“Even though we had more people walking into the OPD with Covid-19, we found out that those who were severely sick and hospitalized were unvaccinated,” GHS Director General, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said in a media interaction in Accra, yesterday.
He said that the preventive protocols should not only be maintained but enhanced to reduce the infection rate.
“Even a mild Covid-19 can give you a serious disease; it can affect the pancreas and make you diabetic, or damage your lungs so everybody must be careful even when you are vaccinated although those vaccinated are better-off than the unvaccinated,” he said.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye’s remarks follows a statement by the GMA which described as misleading, the content of the petition submitted by the Concerned Doctors to the government to rescind the mandatory Covid-19 vaccination.
The release, co-signed by the President, Dr. Frank Serebour and General Secretary of GMA, Dr. Titus Beyuo, indicated that the contents of the petition are not “based on available local and international scientific data.”
“In the era of evidence-based medicine, it is unacceptable that professionals will draw such flawed conclusions based on skewed data that has not gone through the rigors of scientific proof,” a portion of the statement reads.
The GMA said the data provided in the petition of the Concerned Doctors “does not, in any way reflect the situation of COVID-19 in Ghana.”
“Data available to the GMA supports the efficacy and safety of all the COVID-19 vaccines currently registered and in use in Ghana,” he said, adding “the evidence that vaccines reduce the incidence of critical illness.
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission and deaths globally and in Ghana, is undisputed,” GMA’s release stated.
GMA, therefore, dissociated its self from the petition of the Concerned Ghanaian Doctors to the government.
The Association however, encouraged doctors to be guided by the available medical evidence in their public discourse and to channel all grievances through the appropriate avenues for redress though “we acknowledge that individual doctors may have concerns based on personal beliefs,”
They also urged “all persons in Ghana to avail themselves for the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination programme and continue to adhere to all the preventive protocols.”
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri