Patronise vaccination to contain new COVID-19 cases!!

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has expressed worry about an increase in new COVID-19 infections among the Ghanaian populace.

Immediately COVID-19 emerged in the country in March 2020, the GHS, in collaboration with its partners like the World Health Organisation (WHO), did not rest in finding antidote to the pandemic.

Thus in Ghana, the GHS educated the people about measures to follow to fight the disease while the whole world waited for a cure, and encouraged them to uphold the measures.

The preventive measures include washing soiled hands with soap and water, wearing of face mask, social distancing, covering of the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, and avoiding touching the face, especially eyes, nose and mouth, with soiled hands.

There was even a lockdown in Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi and the government even closed the country’s borders, but left it open to only returning Ghanaians and foreign nationals with Ghanaian residence permits.

Even these people were subjected to a 14-day mandatory quarantine if they showed symptoms of the virus, all in the bid to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

Later, COVID-19 vaccination emerged to add to those measures and the vaccination was aimed at achieving herd immunity in the country.

Herd immunity occurs when the majority of a population develops immunity against a contagious disease either through vaccination or due to a previous infection, which significantly reduces the likelihood of disease transmission from one person to another.

In Ghana, the expectation was that at least, 70 per cent of the population (that is 21.75 million out of the country’s 31.07 million in 2022) could be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity in the country.

Unfortunately, some people adopted all manner of conspiracy theories to discourage others from adhering to these measures.

For instance, they said the vaccination would make men impotent.

However, most of the people ignored these nation wreckers and obeyed the measures.

In the end the country made progress in fighting the pandemic but the progress appears to be eroding.

The new cases of the pandemic are increasing the fears of the GHS as there are still segment of the population that have received only partial doses (one bout of vaccination) or have not received any dose of it at all, making them vulnerable to the disease.

Being a service that cares so much about the good health of the people, the GHS has therefore rolled out a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign to curtail an increase in new COVID-19 infections among the populace.

The exercise would last throughout the month of July and it is well planned that it is happening at various hospitals, clinics and health centres, and even at market centres, churches, mosques, workplaces and other suitable places.

The service urges all unvaccinated and partially-vaccinated persons to immediately take the vaccines to curb an upsurge and avert associated illness or deaths.

 The exercise is targeting to administer at least 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to all persons 18 years and above, including pregnant women.

The Ghanaian Times encourages all concerned to patronise the exercise not only for the sake of their own health but that of children 15 years and below who are not eligible to take the vaccines per the national policy, but nonetheless remain vulnerable and need to be indirectly protected through the high vaccination uptake by the adult population to achieve herd immunity.