GHS begins another round of covid-19 vaccination campaign in ER

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has undertaken another round of covid-19 vaccination campaign in the Eastern Region, to ensure that targeted population are fully vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.

The campaign, which started on November 21, ended on November 27, was aimed at getting people to take the two required doses and a booster to be fully immunized against covid-19 infections and their complications.

The Reaching Impact Saturation and Epidemic Control (RISE) a covid-19 vaccination preparedness response, is supporting the Region conduct this round of campaign to boost target and it involves vaccination teams reaching people at homes, schools both Junior and Senior High schools, setting up vaccination sites at vantage points to reach out to people to either receive a first, second or a booster jab to achieve the much desired herd immunity target.

As at September 2022, a total of 1,724,413 doses of the assorted vaccines had been administered in the Eastern Region, 733,975 are fully vaccinated (30.1 percent), whiles more than a million people have received at least one dose (43.4 percent) out of the estimated 1.9 million people targeted to vaccinate in the Region.

Briefing the Ghana News Agency in an interview, under the Mobilizing Media for COVID-19 response, Dr John Otoo, Eastern Regional Deputy Director, Public Health said covid-19 vaccination was very relevant now to strongly withstand any resurgence of the disease.

“The best bet or strategy to control any resurgence of this disease is to ensure that people are fully vaccinated to achieve a herd immunity and that is the main objective for this week long campaign.”

He said in spite of the progress made, the covid-19 vaccination, the target of reaching a herd immunity had not been achieved, therefore, the need to intensify strategies to get people to vaccinate duly.

At least, about 80 percent of the targeted population including children from 15 years and pregnant women are to be immunized. We need to get about 80 percent of the population fully vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and that we are not there yet” he said.

Dr Otoo explained that vaccination was a process of introducing the drug in the body and immunization is when the required doses or jabs have been fully received and urged the public to go for the jabs.

To be fully vaccinated or immunized, people in the eligibility bracket need two jabs of the assorted vaccines such as AstraZeneca and Sputnik V, Modena, and Pfizer and a booster of a third shot whiles those who took the Johnson and Johnson, one shot vaccine is required to take as a booster from any of the vaccines.

At the covid-19 pandemic heist, Eastern Region was recording averagely 54 cases weekly at the health facilities, but there is a consistent drop in cases for the past three months.
Currently, the region has only 4 active cases – two at Ayensuano and one each at Kwahu West and Abuakwa south districts.

Many have relaxed with the Covid-19 vaccination due to the low infections, however, Dr Otoo indicated that the best time to vaccinate against COVID-19 was now as it appears suppressed to withstand another outbreak which often are more intense and devastating.

In the absence of observations of the covid-19 preventive protocols, the trusted protocol to keep to, is to get fully vaccinated to be able to build a strong immunity against the virus in adding to the observation of the safety protocols.