COVID-19: It's 'bone-marrow shocking' Ghanaians with 'underlying conditions, aged won't be vaccinated'

Ghanaians with underlying health conditions and the aged must be part of the categories of people that should be prioritised for COVID-19 vaccination, a former Communication Minister Edward Omane Boamah has said, warning that excluding those people from the vaccination programme portends dire consequences for Ghana, as far as the fight against the pandemic is concerned.

In an open letter to President Nana Akufo-Addo on the matter, the medical doctor and Health Policy Planning and Financing analyst, said: “I was shocked to the marrow when I read Ghanaians with ‘underlying health conditions and the aged’ will not be vaccinated against the novel Coronavirus, SARS-CoV2”.

“Mr President, are they not within the domain of prioritised people in the United States of America?” he asked.

“Why must mother Ghana deprive people with underlying medical conditions and the aged protection if there are no contraindications (i.e. medical reasons not to give the vaccine)?”

Some 2,412,000 COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccines have been earmarked for Ghana by the end of February this year.

Ghana is part of the 145 beneficiaries captured on the COVAX Interim Distribution Forecast for vaccines licensed to the Serum Institute of India (AZ/SII) and issued on 3 February 2021.

“This is in line with the facility’s target to reach at least 3% population coverage in all countries in the first half of the year, enough to protect the most vulnerable groups such as healthcare workers,” the forecast said.

This follows President Akufo-Addo’s announcement that COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be procured in the country by June.

“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 President indicated in his 23rd COVID-19 update address on 31st January 2021.

Seven more COVID-19 patients died in Ghana recently, taking the fatality toll to 440 from Thursday’s 433, the latest figures from the Ghana Health Service indicate.

Some 696 new cases have also been confirmed.

This takes the active caseload to 6,089.

Out of the total of 69,255 confirmed cases since March 2020, a total of 62,729, have recovered and been discharged.

Read Dr Edward Omane Boamah’s full letter below:

GHANA, LET US AVOID ANY FURTHER ERRORS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19.

Good morning Mr President,

Trust you are all doing very well. Over the past two weeks, I have been requesting [the] government to publish the vaccine plan without joy. Mr President, this is a worrying sign.

It is worrying because citizens who qualify to have the vaccine may be selected against.

It is also worrying because it deprives interested parties (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, public health and policy experts, journalists and civil society organisations) the opportunity to make inputs, ask vital questions and institute monitoring and evaluation systems to guide the process, if they wish to do so.

For example, I was shocked to the marrow when I read Ghanaians with “underlying health conditions and the aged” will not be vaccinated against the novel Coronavirus, SARS-CoV2.

Mr President, are they not within the domain of prioritised people in the United States of America?

Why must mother Ghana deprive people with underlying medical conditions and the aged protection if there are no contraindications (i.e. medical reasons not to give the vaccine)?

Respectfully, have we not heard time and again from you and other government officials that comorbidities contribute to COVID induced deaths? More questions than answers.

I have respect for the knowledge of Dr Doodoo, who is said to have made this shocking statement.

I hope he has been misrepresented. I hope this is not government policy.

Already, too many mistakes have been made in the collective fight against COVID-19.

GHANA, LET US AVOID ANY FURTHER ERRORS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19.

Mr President, these are the reasons we need to have the vaccine plan published in the interest of transparency and equity as we prepare to vaccinate Ghanaians against COVID-19.

Thank you.

Dr Edward Kofi Omane Boamah

Medical Doctor & Health Policy Planning and Financing Analyst

February 7, 2021

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