Stakeholders schooled on the need to take COVID-19 vaccination

The Wassa East Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has organized a day’s stakeholders’ workshop to orient participants to serve as COVID-19 vaccination ambassadors within their respective communities.

The workshop formed part of measures to encourage people to take advantage of the COVID-19 vaccination exercise to help stem the spread of the disease.

Addressing participants, the District Director of GHS, Dr Emmanuel Aflekum expressed concern about the low patronage of the vaccines, saying, people needed to be vaccinated to protect themselves from the devastating COVID-19 disease.

He explained that the vaccines procured by the government and those donated by development partners had expiry dates that there was the need to use them before they expired. it would be a dent in the image of the country if people refused to be vaccinated.

He appealed to the participants to serve as COVID-19 vaccination ambassadors by using their position within their respective communities to urge people in their communities to go for vaccines.

Mr Aflekum said, “the nation and its people cannot enjoy a normal life if we become hesitant in taking the COVID -19 vaccine. Life has returned to normalcy in some parts of the western world’ because they have all been vaccinated but we cannot say same here in Ghana”.

He noted that a COVID-19 vaccination card will soon be a requirement before one can travel outside the country very soon one cannot travel outside the country and urged all to make it a must to vaccinate.

The District Disease Control Officer, Madam Patience Asantoa, giving the statistics of COVID-19 cases in the district, said through routine surveillance 310 sample cases were taken out of which 76 men and 48 women tested positive.

She said about 70,000 people in the district were expected to be vaccinated, explaining that 14, 623 persons representing 20 percent of the population have taken one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine while, 2, 892 which represents 13.6 percent of the population have taken two doses of the vaccines.

District Health Promotion Officer, Mr Prince Amanfo, noted that some people have negative perceptions of the vaccines and have assigned all sorts of reasons for their rejection of the vaccine.

He debunked those perceptions and admonished them to desist from influencing other people with their negative thoughts.

The Health Promotion Officer said the directorate was doing all it could to increase awareness and also bring the vaccines to the doorsteps of the people to facilitate patronage.