The government has expressed its commitment to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians, representing the entire adult population, by the end of 2021.
This was announced by President Akufo-Addo in his 26th Covid-19 update on measures being taken to stop the spread of the virus in the country.
He indicated that so far, one million, two hundred and seventy-one thousand, three hundred and ninety-three (1,271,393) vaccine doses have been administered, with eight hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and twenty-two (865,422) persons having received a single jab, and four hundred and five thousand, nine hundred and seventy-one (405,971) persons having their full dose of two (2) jabs.
“Indications are that, by the third quarter of this year, the availability of vaccines for our country will ramp up.
We are expecting, through the COVAX facility, one million Pfizer vaccines from the United States of America, two hundred and twenty-nine thousand, six hundred and seventy (229,670) Pfizer vaccines from the African Union, and two hundred and forty-nine thousand (249,000) AstraZeneca vaccines from the United Kingdom,” he announced.
He said the government was also in the process of procuring seventeen million (17 million) single dose per person Johnson & Johnson vaccines, through the African Medicine Supply Platform, in this quarter.
“We have, as such, upgraded our national, regional and district cold chain to widen our access to vaccines like Pfizer and Modena, that require minus seventy degrees Celsius (-70℃) cold chains.
These include sixteen (16) ultra-low cold freezers, fifty-eight (58) units of ultra-low freezers, fifty (50) normal vaccine refrigerators, three hundred (300) boxes to be filled with ice packs, three hundred (300) ice packed freezers, ten (10) cold chain vans, and one hundred and twenty (120) temperature monitoring devices,” he said.
The President stressed that all the vaccines to be used in the country have been certified as safe-for-use by the national regulatory agency, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA).
” There should, therefore, be no hesitancy amongst the population who are yet to be vaccinated. As the oft-cited saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry,” he urged.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri