The Director-general of the Ghana Health Service has advised persons who have been vaccinated with AstraZeneca not to present themselves to be inoculated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as they may put their lives at risk.

Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said the Ghana Health Service does not have adequate evidence on the safety of mixing vaccines, hence, persons who have already received jabs of the AstraZeneca vaccines must refrain from taking any of the Johnson & Johnson jabs.

He told JoyNews, Friday, "we have a mechanism of checking on how we ensure that we are giving to those who are qualified."

"I believe that if someone's intention is to cheat, by telling them how we intend to check, will make it difficult for us to check, but we don't have enough evidence for the safety of mixing vaccines and in terms of what benefits you get," he said.

He further said government has made provisions for the procurement of some 16.9 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines which would be received in batches.

Ghana took delivery of 177,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on August 7 as part of the first batch of the Africa Union’s African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT).

“This is just the first of many tranches that will be coming in. This is a vaccine that is being shared across the world. We know that for the J & J, our stock of what we have secured is about 16.9 million doses.

“They’d be coming from time to time and very soon we’d get a few more tranches,” he said.

Procurement of AstraZeneca vaccines

Dr. Kuma-Aboagye hinted that government would take delivery of AstraZeneca doses vaccines early September.

“Early next month, we will have AstraZeneca for the second dose. The time does not depend only on the Ghana Health Service but it depends on the supplier, availability of transportation to bring it in here."

“When all those things are put in place, we’d get to know the date of arrival. We should have AstraZeneca next month,” he disclosed.

GHS website

The Ghana Health Service on Friday, August 13, 2021, launched a new website aimed at giving it higher visibility and also make its operations more effective.

"Ghana Health Service has always had our website but we realized that it was not fit for purpose, especially in this day and age. The last few months we’ve been working on updating the website, getting a new website also ensuring that our social media platforms are all included, including all the Covid platforms.

"We have also established websites within the new website for the regions so that they can also manage their website, share information, communicate all their works to other people and that will increase our visibility," Dr. Kuma-Aboagye explained.

He added: "This website, www.ghs.gov.gh, is more interactive. It has all our social media handles all linked up to it and then we have also formed a special team that will continuously be updating the website with new information.

"We have a media pad where all our press releases will be published apart from what we send to you. We have areas where our events will be advertised and also share all our responses with you."