Nearly 35% of the Ghanaian population representing 6,951,968 persons have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, that’s according to the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

Addressing the press on Covid-19 policy updates on Wednesday, January 19, 2022, Director-General of the Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said that the 34.8% who have received at least one dose form part of the government’s target to vaccinate 20million Ghanaians.

The number of persons fully vaccinated are 3,229,995 which represents 16.1% of the Ghanaian population.

“So far 34.8% of the population have received at least one dose. A little over 16% have been fully vaccinated. The 34.8% is in relation to the target of 20 million people to be vaccinated,“ he said.

Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye noted that 1,040,864 people have been vaccinated in the month of January so far while 2,966,925 people were vaccinated in December last year.

“We were able to do about 2.9 million doses of vaccines in December, the first three weeks in December. So far in January, as at today, we have done about one million and forty thousand doses of vaccines. We are mentioning the figures that had been keyed into the system. It is not all the time that the villages are able to enter all the figures into the electronic system based on network issues,” he explained.

According to him, the country has received 25,458,290 vaccine doses and has distributed 14,892,010 doses with 10,566,280 doses currently in stock.

He said out of the 25 million doses, the COVAX facility contributed 17,372,490 representing 68% while the Government purchased 21% of the vaccine doses whereas bilateral relations contributed about 10% of the 25 million doses.

“So far we have received a little over 25 million doses of vaccines. We have distributed over 14 million and we have currently in stock about 10.5 million doses. COVAX has contributed 68%, the government of Ghana has purchased about 21% percent plus and we have some bilateral relations amounting to about 10% of the donations. We want to take this opportunity to thank our partners,” he stated.

He added that “the government is expecting about 1.5 million doses and very soon the date is going to be announced but this is in addition to the doses we have had to hold up so that we can do the main and try not to overwhelm our facility.”

The GHS also announced some changes to the guidelines for Ghanaians entering the country by air at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

Dr Patrick Kumah-Aboagye explained that the directive has been reviewed to become more lenient.

Now, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated Ghanaians and residents who are foreigners have been “exempted from the requirement of full vaccination before traveling to Ghana.”