How many Ghanaians have so far received COVID-19 jabs?
According to the health agency managing the deployment of the vaccines, Ghana Health Service (GHS), 405,971 people have been fully vaccinated, while a total of 865,422 persons are yet to receive their second dose.
As of July 14, the West African country had administered 1, 271,393 doses, the Director-General of GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said at a press briefing.
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Ghana launched its national COVID-19 vaccination programme on March 1, 2021, after receiving 600,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the COVAX facility – a global initiative that’s trying to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Meanwhile, the vaccine roll-out has been halted largely due to the unavailability of vaccines. “For the past 6 to 8 weeks, we’ve not had vaccination …” Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye noted.
However, the country will soon be taking delivery of 1.2 million doses of Pfizer, and 17 million doses of Johnson and Johnson vaccines.
“We are expecting about 1.2 million Pfizer vaccines from the US through the COVAX. And we are hoping that latest by the middle of August, it should be available. About 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca will be coming in for the second dose but we will continue engaging other options to ensure that we have enough to cover all those who are waiting for their second dose. For Johnson and Johnson, we have an agreement with AU for about 17 million doses. We are expecting that by the middle of August or the end of July, we may get some samples,” he said.
Ghana is in the early stages of experiencing a third wave of COVID-19 infections with the country witnessing community spread of the Delta variant.
For the first time in over three months, Ghana has over 2,500 active COVID-19 cases. The country’s total confirmed cases of COVID-19 stands at 98, 114, with 2,512 active cases, more than 94,000 recoveries and 806 deaths.
The WHO had earlier in a statement warned that Africa is facing a fast-surging third wave of COVID-19 pandemic, with cases spreading more rapidly and projected to soon overtake the peak of the second wave the continent witnessed at the start of 2021.
According to the WHO, the pandemic is resurging in 12 African countries and the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, has been detected in 14 African countries.
