By Elorm Aryee
The Volta Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has initiated mechanisms to get the majority of people in the region to get inoculated with Covid -19 vaccines. The Directorate has adopted measures such as enhancing Covid -19 prevention education and inoculating people in their homes and public places to boost its vaccination campaign. The Volta Region has performed poorly in its vaccination coverage compared to other regions in the country due to Covid -19 vaccine hesitancy.
The Volta Regional Health Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has set one million and 55,000 as the targeted number of people to be vaccinated in the region. The Directorate has so far taken delivery of 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines since it started the vaccination campaign early this year.
Over the period about 216,000 people representing 20% have been inoculated out of which 65,000 representing 6% have taken their second doses.
16,000 out of 160, 000 doses of the various Covid-19 Vaccines that were deployed last month expired and have been discarded due to Vaccine hesitancy.
The Deputy Volta Regional Director of Health in charge of Public Health, Dr. Senanu Djokoto in an interview with GBCNews expressed worry about the development considering the huge investment government makes in procuring the vaccines and the efforts of health workers in the vaccination campaign.
Dr. Djokoto said complacency on the part of the youth in the region has been a major challenge to the region’s vaccination campaign.
”Misinformation about the Covid-19 Vaccines is also a contributory factor to the low turnout”.
GBCNews solicited the views of some people at the Ho Central Market with regard to wastage of the Covid-19 Vaccines due to vaccine hesitancy.
Dr Djokoto disclosed that the directorate has deployed mobile teams to homes and public places to ramp up its vaccination drive.
There are currently 15 active cases of Covid-19 in the region.