Dr. Abdulai Abukari addressing journalists in Nalerigu
The North East Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service(GHS), Dr. Abdulai Abukari, has disclosed that the regional health service will embark on a door-to-door exercise to vaccinate residents with the COVID-19 Vaccine.
According to him, the exercise will be a combination of mobile and static mode of administration and called for maximum support of residents to ensure that the exercise is successful.
“I will like to state that we have sufficient stock of COVID-19 vaccines on our hands and we need the input of all especially members of the Public Health Emergency Management Committee, the media, our traditional leaders, queenmothers, pastors, Imams, the Security Agencies, SHS Heads (GES) to support us in getting our people vaccinated.”
This forms part of the “Protect yourself, Protect your family, Get vaccinated Against COVID-19 National Launch which took place at Somanya on Thursday the 21st of April 2022 and expected to end on Monday the 25th of April 2022.
The North East Health Director at a media engagement at Nalerigu indicated that the region is targeting about 40,885 representing 13% of all eligible persons requiring at least one dose for this exercise.
Dr. Abdulai Abukari with journalists in Nalerigu
“We have received AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine 15,400 doses, Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine 40,452 and Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine 16,800 totaling 72,652 doses for the exercise. We are therefore using the campaign period to attempt at vaccinating all eligible population and they include persons yet to receive a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, a person due for a second dose or a person due for a booster.”
He stated that they are employing several strategies, for the vaccination exercise such as vigorous outreach programmes to get as many people as practicable vaccinated adding that they are using wide risk communication and also enhancing educational activities at all fronts in every community in all the districts in the region.
“Since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic two years ago, the North East Region has recorded a total of 384 cases with 11 deaths. The last case we recorded in the region was on 2nd February 2022 and currently the region has no active case on admission.”
Dr. Abukari hinted that a percentage of all persons who have so far taken at least one dose is 55.8% while 40.7% are persons who have fully completed the COVID-19 vaccination.
He said the restrictions have been eased and fortunately the country has sufficient quantities of vaccine.
“So, I would like to once again make a passionate appeal to all our community members who have not yet taken the vaccine to get vaccinated. The vaccine is free and protective. So, let’s make it our civic duty and responsibility to get vaccinated as well as advocate for the vaccination of all our love ones who are eligible. We are well aware of the rumours, misinformation and disinformation which are still rife leading to hesitancy and outright refusals which poses a huge a challenge towards the uptake of the vaccine especially among critical population groups, community influencers, professional groups, segments of the general population. And so lets work hard by becoming ambassadors in towards preventing vaccine hesitancy,” he said.
The North East Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service(GHS) thanked all members of the North East Regional Public Health Emergency Management Committee, the media, who are the pillars for the dissemination of vital information to the general public, all other stakeholders, and vaccination teams across the region for their eminence support in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
FROM Eric Kombat, Nalerigu