GHS to roll out second Covid-19 doses from May 19

Ghana Health Service (GHS) will on Wednesday, May 19 begin administering the second doses of Covishield, the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, to the segmented groups who received their first doses.

The exercise, would be undertaken in 43 selected districts across the country, and would cover frontline health workers, adults of 60 years and above, frontline government officials, media practitioners, frontline workers in the formal sector and persons with underlining health conditions.

More than 400,000 doses of the Covishield are available to begin the administration of the second dose to about 900,000 persons.

This follows the receipt of some additional 350,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines, at the Kotoka International Airport, from the Democratic Republic of Congo under the Covax facility, in the early hours of Friday, May 7.

The vaccines received are an addition to the 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine received on February 24, 2021.

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Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, told the GNA that the vaccines received from Congo would expire on June 24, approximately seven weeks from now.

“We will be getting in touch with people to come for their second doses through test messages,calls, and public announcements,” he said.

He explained that Congo’s consignment was shipped to Ghana after it failed to utilise them weeks after receiving them.

“The vaccine we received today from Congo is part of the first batch we received in February – COVAX re-allocated them to Ghana because Congo has not been able to utilise theirs,” he said

Dr Asiedu-Bekoe said Ghana would be able to deploy the 350,000 vaccines in a few days.