The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has declared Wednesday 14 to Sunday 18 December 2022 as National COVID-19 Vaccination Days (NVD) to increase the uptake of the vaccine during the yuletide.

The upcoming NVD campaign, the fifth of its kind, is targeted at administering 1.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the unvaccinated across the country.

Pregnant women and all persons aged 15 years and above are eligible to receive the jab.

Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service who launched the campaign in Accra on Friday said the move was part of efforts to bring the country closer to the attainment of herd immunity.

During the campaign period, approximately 6000 vaccination teams will be deployed across the length and breadth of the country, employing both static and close-to-client strategies to reach the unvaccinated.

Vaccinations will be carried out in all government hospitals across the country, schools, marketplaces, churches, mosques, and homes.

Dr Aboagye said during the last four NVD campaign series, the dynamics of vaccine distribution and level of vaccination matched with total vaccine receipts, saying ‘as vaccine receipt quantities increased, vaccine distribution and level of vaccinations increased commensurately’.

He said during the first campaign in December 2021, 2.9 million doses were administered after which the total monthly administered doses dipped to as low as 671 thousand in March 2022.

“The second, third and fourth series of the campaign days have yielded positive results, moving the total number of administered doses from 13.8 million doses as of end of April 2022 to some 21 million doses at the end of November 2022,” he said.

The Director General said currently, over 12 million people in Ghana had received at least a dose of the COVID -19 vaccine, with over 9 million fully immunized, emphasizing that the disease was far from over as it was unpredictable, as a larger proportion of the vaccine eligible population remained unvaccinated.

He called on eligible persons who are yet to get the jabs to get vaccinated during the exercise, especially as the festive season approached.

“Vaccination remains the most effective way of protecting against the COVID-19 disease, the vaccines are safe, effective and free, prevent severe illnesses, hospitalization and death,” he said.

Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, Program Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunisation, GHS, said vaccination is the main way to prevent COVID-19.

“The National COVID-19 Vaccination Campaigns have shown to be an additional key strategy that gets a lot of persons vaccinated within a short time, four of such campaigns have been completed with impressive results,” he said.

Dr Amponsa-Achiano said the fifth campaign was critical as Ghana moved into the festive season where exceptionally large gatherings are anticipated.

He emphasised that COVID-19 vaccines can and do protect most people from hospitalisation and death, which is why many doses need to be administered around the world as rapidly, and equitably, as possible.

National COVID-19 Vaccination Days campaigns have worked as an effective strategy of improving COVID-19 vaccination coverage within a brief time

Dr Amponsa-Achiano said misinformation, disinformation and vaccine hesitancy have been a major challenge in getting more persons vaccinated especially in the Southern parts of the country.