“National COVID-19 Vaccination Days” programme slated for Feb.

The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, has announced that the GHS, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, will next month commence a programme dubbed “National COVID-19 Vaccination Days (NaCVaDs)”.

The programme, according to him, is currently being planned to start on February 2 to February 6, 2022, and forms part of measures in improving vaccination drive and access to vaccines for COVID-19 in the country.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye made this known during a media encounter in Accra to provide policy updates on COVID-19 management.

He noted that the programme is an additional measure which will likely help drive cases further down, stressing that “cconcerted efforts by all are required to ensure the fourth wave is flattened”

He said a total of 9,499,019 doses had been administered as of Wednesday January 19, 2022 across the country.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye said that the current 4^th wave had been associated with a significant increase in cases.

“Despite the low proportion of severe and critical cases, evidence of high proportion of such cases being unvaccinated is a source of concern. The current downward trend is expected to continue with the intensification of efforts at maintaining protocols and vaccination,” he added.

Pregnant women

He also revealed that COVID-19 vaccines would soon be administered on pregnant women.

He mentioned, specifically, that the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech are the recommended vaccines for administration to pregnant women.

He recalled that during the initial stages of the vaccine roll-out, his outfit was sceptical about administering the vaccines to pregnant women.

However, he said pregnant women can now receive the COVID-19 jabs based on recent data and findings both internationally and locally.

“We have done a lot of work. As Ghana Health Service and all the other agencies working with us, we are all concerned about pregnant women. That is why we excluded them previously in the first one year of implementation,” he added.

Travel guidelines

Touching on COVID-19 travel guidelines, he said Ghanaians and resident foreigners who are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated are exempted from requirement for full vaccinations before traveling to Ghana.

“They will be offered vaccination on arrival failing which the passenger will undergo mandatory quarantine for 7 days (at the cost to the passenger). All other cases will be considered on case-by-case basis,” he added.

He stated that home management teams would be strengthened to ensure strict compliance with the home management protocols by eligible person

For all patients on home isolation, the GHS Director- General said, de-isolation will be seven days after testing positive and all hospitalised patients without symptoms will de-isolate 10 days after testing positive

“In cases of high or moderate risk exposure to someone infected with COVID-19, affected person will stay at home/self-quarantine until day 5 after last exposure. If symptoms develop, the person will be tested for COVID-19. For negative test result, the person can resume normal activities on Day 5,” he added.

Meanwhile, he explained that where test is positive, the person will stay isolated until day 7 after last exposure

Vaccine boosters

Dr Kuma-Aboagye indicated that as with the initial COVID-19 vaccine deployment strategy, the underlisted segmented populations will be given COVID-19 vaccine boosters: “Healthcare workers, Persons with underlying medical conditions, Persons 60 years and above, Frontline security personnel, Members of the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature”

The purpose of a Covid-19 booster shot is to give people an added level of protection from COVID-19 if their existing protection has waned over time.

He noted that the policy would indicate the category of persons who qualify to receive boosters and the type to be administered.

“We have gone through and completed the needed processes for giving boosters and we will soon announce this. It may cover children within a particular age group, certain categories of people and that may also include pregnant women and the type of vaccines they can take,” he added.