Dr Omane Boamah, the former Minister of Communications, has appealed to the government to publish an official vaccine rollout plan as the country readies to receive 19.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines at the end of June.
He explained that the lack of a clear plan for the vaccine rollout would be detrimental to the efficiency of the immunisation programme it may want to undertake as the citizenry who qualify to be inoculated may miss out.
Dr Boamah in a Facebook post cautioned that it was also worrying because it deprived interested parties such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, public health, policy experts, journalists and civil society organisations the opportunity to make inputs, ask vital questions, institute monitoring and evaluation systems to guide processes “if they wish to do so.
His appeal for a vaccine rollout plan comes after the Director-General of the Ghana Standards Authority, Professor Alexander Dodoo revealed that children, pregnant women, people with allergies and underlying health conditions, and the aged will not be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
According to him, “normally for starters, children will not be included, they’re more protected, not passing on the virus, those with allergies, underlying health conditions, whose immune system appears compromised will not be vaccinated.
However, Dr Boamah, bemoaned such revelation was shocking as the people being ruled out from the immunisation programme as stated by Prof. Dodoo should rather be prioritised to prevent more deaths and quizzed “Mr President, are they not within the domain of prioritised people in the United States of America?
“Why must mother Ghana deprive people with underlying medical conditions and the aged protection if there are no contraindications, that is, medical reasons not to give the vaccine?
“Respectfully, have we not heard time and again from you and other government officials comorbidities contribute to COVID-19 induced deaths? More questions than answers,” Dr Boamah noted and called on the government to prevent any further errors in the fight against the pandemic by publishing a vaccine rollout plan.
“Mr President, these are the reasons we need to have the vaccine plan published in the interest of transparency, accountability, probity and equity as we prepare to vaccinate citizens against the virus,” Dr Boamah implored. –myjoyonline.com