Coronavirus: 70% of Ghanaians want to be vaccinated – EPI

Ghana’s program manager for the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), Kwame Amponsa-Akyianu says majority of Ghanaians are now willing to avail themselves for the COVID-19 vaccine.

On his accord, conspiracy theories have reduced drastically to the extent that Ghanaians are now rushing to get themselves vaccinated.

He said, “The populace is now demanding the vaccine and people who were not captured in the first group to be vaccinated are now trooping to vaccination centres for the vaccine. The conspiracy theories have also reduced greatly”.

Proving his claim, Kwame Amponsa-Akyianu shared two studies undertaken prior to the mass vaccination exercise.

“There were a lot of conspiracy theories when we were about to start the mass vaccination exercise but, there has suddenly been a drastic change of minds. We conducted a survey and the results of the first one showed that about 60 percent of Ghanaians did not want to be vaccinated. Later, a survey conducted by UNICEF revealed that 70 percent of Ghanaians are now ready to be vaccinated”.

He made this known in an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show aired on e.TV Ghana and Happy98.9FM.

Conspiracy theories and mistrust contributed to a flourishing of scepticism about COVID-19 vaccines in Ghana, which posed potential dangers to future immunisation campaigns.

Popular amongst this misconception was men and women losing their fertility after taking the vaccine with others insisting it was the mark of the beast.

To clear these misconceptions, the media, health agencies and various institutions and bodies took it upon themselves to drive intensive educational campaigns, which seem to be bearing fruits.