The Ghana Health Service (GHS) is expected to begin giving out jabs of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the COVID-19 virus in the Greater Accra Region on Friday, August 13, 2021.
Vaccine shots in other coronavirus hotspots such as the Ashanti Region will begin on Monday, August 16, 2021.
“We are hopeful that at least the Greater Accra Region will start [vaccination] on Friday. [Vaccines for] Kumasi will be leaving here today [Thursday], so it will not be realistic for Ashanti to start Friday… hopefully by Monday, they should also be able to start,” the manager of Ghana’s expanded programme on Immunisation, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano said.
The vaccine shots will be given out in 11 districts; seven in the Greater Accra Region and four in the Greater Kumasi metro.
The Service has said it will be targeting persons at higher risk with the Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
“We are still looking at the most at risk. Of course, we are also pursuing additional vaccines for them. Everybody is at risk, but there are more vulnerable people, and so that is what we are looking at now,” Dr Amponsa-Achiano noted.
The Ghana Health Service will not be offering the Johnson & Johnson jabs to persons who have previously received the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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.
So far, only 405,971 have been fully vaccinated by receiving both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, whilst 865,422 have received only the first dose.
Ghana has recorded 109,022 cases of the virus, and currently has 6,765 cases after a surge in the last 40 days.
At the beginning of July, Ghana had 1,573 active cases of the virus.