We’re on course to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians – Amponsa-Achiano

Ghana’s program manager for the Expanded Program on Immunization, Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, has reiterated that the country is on course to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians against Covid-19 by the end of 2021.

Speaking on the Morning Starr, Dr. Amponsa-Achiano said the country is expecting some vaccines from AstraZeneca and Pfizer by the end of August to kick off the country’s vaccination program which has stagnated for some time due to the lack of vaccines.

“We have been working around the clock to get nearly 2 million AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines. They are coming from 3 places but will be under the COVAX facility…All things being equal, we’re giving ourselves up to the end of August to start the deployment of AstraZeneca when we get them.”

Dr. Amponsa-Achiano also urged people hesitant to take the vaccines to make themselves available for it to enable Ghana to achieve herd immunity.

Ghana has struggled to get vaccines for Covid-19. So far the country has been able to fully vaccinate less than 500, 000 people compared to other countries in the west.

Meanwhile, a total of 664 new COVID-19 cases have been confirmed by the Ghana Health Service as of 29 July 2021, the latest figures have indicated.

It takes the country’s active case count to 5,928. Out of that, 17 are critical and 86 are severe.

Since mid-March 2020, a total of 104,994 cases have been recorded in Ghana. A total of 98,229 of them have recovered.

The death toll has risen to death 837.