Programmes Manager of the Extended Programme on Immunization (EPI), Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Akyianu has disclosed that the 350,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines to arrive in the country will take at most two weeks for them to be administered to the populace.
The information comes after the Programmes Manager announced that the delayed second dose of the COVID-19 vaccines will arrive in the country on Friday, May 7, 2021.
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Dr. Amponsa-Akyianu in an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show, revealed: “It might take a week or two to roll out the 350,000 vaccines but we have our plans. When we are done putting it together, we will officially announce”.
The Programmes Manager made known that with the arrival of the second doses of vaccines, the focus will be on those who took the first jab in the first week of March.
According to him, after the second doses are administered, what it will mean is that those who receive the second doses to complete the process will be protected.
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Meanwhile, he has said that since the country is targeting a herd immunity of the population, the EPI will “assiduously work at getting a lot more people; at least some 60-66 percent of the population protected so that we can ultimately aim at getting herd immunity and we need to do this within the next six months or seven months”.
Ghana, after receiving 600,000 vaccines from the COVAX Facility, also received 50,000 vaccines from the Government of India and over 300,000 from South African Telecommunications group, MTN.
Currently, over 800,000 people have been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccines. The country is awaiting additional vaccines to administer the second doses.
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The Ghana Health Service has said that 350,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive in Accra aboard a Turkish Airline flight on Friday.
Programmes Manager of the Extended Programme on Immunization (EPI), Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Akyianu says this will give a boost to Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccination programme, with regards to the second phase of the nationwide vaccination.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
