The Ghana Health Service (GHS) will use multiple communication channels to reach people for the COVID-19 vaccination exercise, expected to commence from Tuesday, March 2, 2021.

Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Presidential Advisor on Health, in a media interview on Saturday, said the GHS would rely on the mass media, Information vans, online App, assembly members, unit committee members and community health nurses to inform the population about places or centres to go for the vaccination.

Some of the designated centres for the vaccination include; public and private health facilities, churches and schools while health workers would visit homes to administer the vaccines.
Dr Nsiah-Asare said the country had decentralised its immunisation system and over the years, provided over 95 per cent coverage to children thus, administering 13 different vaccines.

Dr Nsiah-Asare said it had segmented the population geographically and that people in COVID-19 hotspots areas, including; the Greater Accra Metropolitan area, Awutu Senya East and West, Greater Kumasi Metropolitan area and Obuasi Municipal areas would be the first to be vaccinated.

Additionally, people with underlying health conditions, 60 years and above persons, frontline healthcare workers, frontline security personnel, members of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary would be the first to receive shots of the vaccines.

Also, children under 16 years and pregnant women are excluded from the vaccination until safety data on the vaccines are established.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to take the first jab publicly on Tuesday, March 2, to demonstrate the safety of the vaccines and foster public trust and confidence.

The government on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 received 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India under the Global Access Facility (COVAX Facility).

The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has, so far, approved Coveshield AstraZeneca vaccines produced by Serum Institute of India and Sputnik-V vaccines from Russia for mass immunisation in Ghana, starting from March to October, this year'.

The vaccines would be administered in three phases, with each person expected to take two doses to help create head immunity for the population.

It is estimated that 20 million Ghanaians would be vaccinated across the 260 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.

The GHS has trained over 12,500 vaccinators, 2,000 supervisors and 37,413 volunteers.
Ghana will receive 12.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines under the COVAX Facility, free of charge.

However, government is expected to spend about $38 million to procure vaccines through bilateral and multilateral agencies.