Vaccine scepticism largely fueled by ignorance - Prof Joseph Osafo

Joseph Osafo, an Associate Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Ghana has called for Ghanaians to accept coronavirus vaccines when they arrive in the country.

According to him, even though vaccination scepticism was not new to Ghana and Africa, in respect of coronavirus vaccine deployment, it was largely as a result of ignorance and a thriving infodemic around the virus.

Ghanaweb monitored his comments on Peace FM’s Kokorokoo morning show as he discussed the coronavirus situation with other panelists.

“Unfortunately we have Ghanaians in the diaspora who are sending videos discouraging people from accepting vaccines. We already know that immunization of children in Ghana and certain parts of Africa is challenging.

“Some reject it. It is driven sometimes by their faith, their values, their views etc. But largely the hesitancy to take vaccines is driven by ignorance. People already don’t know much about it but they have heard so many conspiracy theories around it,” he added.

He stressed that it was in the interest of everyone to be open-minded about vaccines and to trust that government will secure safe doses for deployment. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo spoke about vaccines during his January 31 address.

What the president said on vaccines

Fellow Ghanaians, in Update No. 21, I indicated that Ghana is set to procure her first consignment of the COVID vaccines within the first half of this year. Since then, a lot of work has been done towards the realisation of this. Our aim is to vaccinate the entire population, with an initial target of twenty million people.

Through bilateral and multilateral means, we are hopeful that, by the end of June, a total of seventeen million, six hundred thousand (17.6 million) vaccine doses would have been procured for the Ghanaian people. The earliest vaccine will be in the country by March.

The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) will use its established processes for granting emergency-use-authorization for each vaccine in Ghana. As President of the Republic, I assure you that only vaccines that have been evaluated and declared as safe-for-use in Ghana will be administered.