North Tongu Member of Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has said Ghana cannot attain herd immunity in the quest to defeat the coronavirus pandemic.
He said that despite the fact that by current analyses, only 2.7% of Ghanaians are fully vaccinated with total vaccine donation and pledges only capable of catering for a maximum of 40% of the Ghanaian adult population in a best-case scenario, that is if none expires or gets damaged; the government could not at the very least maintained its previous budgetary of GH¢500million to purchase vaccines.
Government, he added, could only provide for GH¢300milion in the 2022 budget for vaccine purchases.
At a generous US$10 average cost per dose, he said, that allocation will cater for only a 2.5million double-vaccinated Ghanaians, he added
“This does not account for potential booster shots, particularly with the Omicron threat. At this, attaining herd immunity can only be a mirage,” the former Deputy Minister of Education tweeted on Saturday, December 11 2021.
The month of December has been declared by the GHS had as the vaccination month.
Addressing a press conference in Accra on Sunday, November 28, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kumah-Aboagye 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-19 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 “strict enforcement of the protocols at the KIA. We are going to increase surveillance. We are expecting an 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.”
Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr Anthony Nsia Asare, allayed fears of persons who are worried about the potential reaction from taking the covid vaccine.
He stated that it is normal to experience headaches, body pains and other reactions. These are indications that the vaccine is functioning properly in the body, he said.
“If you are vaccinated and you feel slight headache it means the vaccine is working very well,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, December 4 with Dzifa Bampoh.
Source: 3news
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Instead of advising your people to vaccinate, you are saying Ghana cannot achieve herd immunity. How can the nation achieve its target when your constituents are refusing to vaccinate. If all of you go to your constituencies to educate the people we will be able to achieve our target of herd immunity. Petty ego and 'machoism' are being displayed in parliament by parliamentarians.
You just can't win an election by always being synical about the policies of the government of the day without demonstrating what you would have done differently to be on course. I keep saying that the politics of the NDC can only hold if Ghanaians are assumed to be less intelligent. This is in no way the case. And that is why I believe their insistent nay-saying, with time, becomes counterproductive and unpatriotic. That does not speak well of a politician who has the livelihood of his people at heart. Except for one thing: that politicians are self-seeking and do not seek the mandate to serve the people. Hence, at the end of the day, ***barred word*** and corruption become the means to sustain political power. We have had a lot of that from the NDC-administrations. Young politicians like Sam George, Ablakwa and others cannot progress expediently in their political careers when the ability to speak the Queen's language, insult, and defame their political opponents is the main criteria for political appointments.