COVID: It’ll Be Excellent To Vaccinate 80% Of The Population Before Christmas – GMA

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The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has said that in order to prevent another wave of the coronavirus in Ghana, between 70 to 80 percent of the total population should be inoculated before the Christmas occasion.

General Secretary of the Association, Dr Titus Beyuo the Christmas occasion is likely to increase the number of infection hence the need to get more people vaccinated.

He told TV3 in an interview that: “If you look at our figures, we are doing pretty well.

“Cases have dropped that we thought we were going to have a busy Christmas and bring our lives back to normal because there some days we recorded zero active cases until this Omicron issue came in. For now, the data available shows that the Omicron is a bit more transmissible.

“What I will say is that even with the absence of Omicron, with less than 10 per cent of the population vaccinated, the Christmas festivity automatically was going to lead to rise in cases.

“So our best bet is to take the opportunity from the government that we should all be vaccinated in the month of December. If by the time we are celebrating New Year we have 70 to 80 per cent of the population vaccinated that is excellent and therefore, we are sure that our celebration will not lead to another wave.

“With the advent of Omicorn, as a nation we have to check our borders well, I think we are doing that and I commend the government for that, they should screen everybody coming in, do the sequencing, the community surveillance should go on with sequencing as well and we should deploy IT again.

“In the Netherlands recently, a couple tested positive but they decided to travel out of the country but because they are tracking everybody , they picked them up and did not allow them to travel. If we use all the information available to us we will be able to get people to self isolate if they are positive so they don’t expose the entire public to danger.”

Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr Anthony Nsia Asare had also asked all persons to stick to the protocols outlined to tackle the coronavirus pandemic in Ghana.

He urged persons who yet to be inoculated to get fully vaccinated as a way of protecting their lives and also the lives of others.

Referring to a picture of medical practitioners appealing to persons to protect themselves in order to also protect health workers who are already drained, Dr Nsia Asare said “Health care workers are tired and I am one of them.”

He was speaking on the Key Points on TV3/3FM with Dzifa Bampoh regarding the measures introduced by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to prevent a fourth wave of the virus in Ghana.

“We cannot afford a fourth wave,” he said, adding that “we can all do this together if you are vaccinated.”

He further allayed the fears of persons who are scared of the possible side effect of taking the vaccine.

“If you are vaccinated and you feel slight headache it means the vaccine is working very well,” he stressed.

The GHS had declared the month of December as the vaccination month.

Director-General Dr Patrick Kumah-Aboagye speaking at a press conference in Accra on Sunday November 28 said vaccination was the surest way to deal with the virus.

He further assured that the authorities are going to scale up surveillance measures at the Kotoka International Airport during the Christmas season to ensure that Covid infections do not increase.

He further said that the mistakes that were made in December last year which occasioned the escalation of infections in January this year, will not be repeated.

There is going to be a “strict enforcement of the protocols at the KIA. We are going to increase surveillance. We are expecting increased number of people to arrive in the country.

“we are going to ensure that our logistics are prepared, we will continue our surveillance to be able to look at that, we are going to look at isolation centres,” he said.

He added “Our contact tracing will be strengthened.

“We are going to engage with religious organizations to ensure that activities in done in Christmas are in accordance with Covid protocols.”

By:peacefmonline.com