We are doing house to house vaccination – Health Director

The Ayawaso West Municipal Health Directorate says it is strategically rolling out a house to house COVID-19 vaccination exercise to get people in the communities fully vaccinated.

The exercise has helped reach out to members within the municipality, leading to about 60 per cent of the population taking one of the vaccines.

Madam Louisa Ademki Matey, Ayawaso West Municipal Health Director, said this during a sensitization and vaccination programme organized by Stratcomm Africa and Mastercard Foundation in collaboration with the Health Directorate.

Madam Matey said they had intensified the campaign on adherence to safety protocols and needed to visit homes now that people have relaxed in going by the protocols.

“Since the vaccination began in March this year till now, only 20 per cent of the population in the municipality had fully been vaccinated,” she added.

She said the aim, therefore, was to get to the smaller communities and to also get the artisans to go for the vaccination and capture everyone on board.

“We will not sit at the Legon Hospital and expect them to come,” she said

Madam Matey explained that the strategy afforded them the opportunity to further engage households about coronavirus and the need for strict adherence to the protocols.

The Health Director said they had had community volunteers, who had offered their services for free in the last three months.

She lauded the contribution of agencies and advocacy groups, who had supported in diverse ways, saying they would continue to collaborate and never relent in their approach.

Ms Myra Ankrah, Representative from Stratcomm Africa, underscored the need to engage more and broaden the knowledge base of the masses to reduce the myth and conspiracy theories, particularly as the virus kept mutating and having different names.

“It is important to get close to the community, as they talk about myth and find out what those myths are, and debunk them and also continue to push the message down to them,” she said.

Ms Ankrah said they were targeting two million people across communities and that similar projects had started in the northern part of Ghana.

The sensitization and vaccination exercise at the Okponglo Park was the third held in succession by the two organisations after Agbogbloshie and Tema Newton.

The event saw young people performed on stage to educate participants about the safety measures, symptoms and vaccines of COVID-19 in the Ga language.

Source: GNA