After weeks of apprehension over the fate of Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccination programme, the exercise looks set to resume soon after 350,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines landed in Accra this morning.
It arrived around 5 am, aboard a Turkish Airline flight to kick-start the second phase of the nationwide vaccination.
As of yesterday, Ghana had recorded 1,583 active COVID-19cases, with the total confirmed cases at 92,828. The total number of deaths stands at 783, while the recoveries are 90,462. The total number of people who have been vaccinated are 849,527.
Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunization of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano said Ghana was supposed to have received its second AstraZeneca vaccine on Tuesday, May 4, unfortunately, there was a cancellation of flight. Dr. Amponsa-Achiano said Ghana is taking some doses from the DRC because the donors realized the country had a lot of vaccines.
Fears that the programme could be held back heightened when the second batch of doses from the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) facility, expected from India, did not arrive as scheduled. The Serum Institute of India produces the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
India has placed a temporary hold on all exports of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to concentrate on domestic demands, in view of the surge in infections and fatalities among its 1.4 billion people. Ghana was the first country to receive vaccines from the COVAX facility, which has 92 beneficiary countries.
Dr Amponsa-Achiano said there is no need for people to be afraid of going for the jabs because the vaccines have a shelf life of six months. He urged the media, social media users and the public to stop peddling falsehood about the vaccines.
