President Akufo-Addo has said the country would reach its 20 million vaccination target by the end of the first quarter of 2022.

Speaking in an interview with Forbes Africa, he expressed optimism about the country’s plan to vaccinate the entire adult population in Ghana.

“Access to vaccines has been growing. By the end of this year, projections are that we would have received some 15 million vaccines.

"That 20 million target we may not reach this year, but we believe by the end of the first quarter next year, we would have attained.

And the significance of it is that in a population of 30 million people, if we are able to vaccinate 20 million, it means we are vaccinating the entire adult population of Ghana and that in itself gives us all the immunity we need so as a target, it is a really important target. We are also taking some long-term decisions,” Akufo-Addo said in an interview with Forbes Africa.

He added, “We are in the process of creating a national vaccine institute led by very capable and world-class Ghanaian scientists, and we are hoping that by next year it will be up and running so we can find strong capabilities to find vaccines for our people.”

Currently, 2,573,073 persons representing 12.9%, have fully been vaccinated since the mass vaccination programme started in March this year.

The country is also expecting to receive an additional 8 million doses by the end of the year and an estimated 26 million doses by the end of December.

The Ghana Health Service has confirmed 1,074 new cases of the virus as of December 29, 2021, increasing the total number of confirmed cases to 141,295.

The death toll stands at 1,287 after four additional fatalities were recorded across the country, according to the update on the dashboard of the Ghana Health Service.

Meanwhile, health experts have said the country is experiencing its fourth wave of the pandemic since it broke out in the country in March 2020.

“Clearly, you can see that there is a torrential rise in cases, so if in terms of nomenclature, then we are in it. I mean, if you look at the shape of the curve, we are now a different shape than we had two or three weeks ago,” Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Franklin Asiedu Bekoe, told JoyNews.