Understanding the science behind vaccines, including how viruses and bacteria affect your immune system, what vaccines are made of, and how vaccines work with the body’s immune system, can help you begin to appreciate how they help prevent us from suffering from dangerous and sometimes deadly diseases.

Speaking to the topic 'Understanding Vaccine Science and Safety' on Joy FM's Ultimate Health, the Programme Manager of Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, said, "The main role of the Covid-19 vaccine is to protect you from hospitalisation due to severe Covid-19 disease and/or death.

"This means that one can still be infected with the virus even after vaccination. So, naturally, you can't build immunity to anything your body has never experienced. This is when vaccination comes in."

A vaccine is introduced in the body deliberately to teach the body's defence system (immune system) to respond well to the actual germ that causes Covid-19."

Fellow West Africa Post-graduate College of Medical Lab Science, Immunologist Dr Dennis Adu-Gyasi also added that normally, immunity developed after infection with a germ lives longer than vaccinations, but studies show otherwise with Covid-19. This makes vaccination a better choice to attain immunity than to be infected."

According to Dr Amponsa-Achiano, screening people during any mass vaccination exercise before vaccination is not technically important and programmatically feasible.

Normally people change and adopt a positive behaviour when they see that cases are going up, which might have also contributed to our ability to manage the pandemic.

Traditionally, vaccines haven’t been an issue in Ghana. However, vaccinated persons should continue to wear their masks not to infect others who may not have been vaccinated and are susceptible to severe disease.

He also confirmed the full use of the Covid-19 vaccines, which have been allocated to Ghana, by saying, "We have successfully used the Covid-19 vaccines we have received so far in the country."

Dr Adu-Gyasi reiterated Covid-19 vaccines are safe, and anyone who is identified to receive any of the approved products should see it as an advantage to battle the Pandemic.

The global scientific community, with concerted effort, was able to get Covid-19 vaccines in a record time. Agreeing to use the genetic material (e.g. mRNA) platform did the trick.