Govt may impose sanctions on persons who refuse to take Covid-19 vaccine – Oppong Nkrumah

Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has said government may be compelled to impose sanctions on persons who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Ghana commenced a vaccination exercise last week with about 300,000 persons vaccinated so far.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday at the Peduase Lodge, Hon. Oppong Nkrumah stated that the government believes it will have to force those unwilling to take a jab to do so when the need arises.

“We are pleased that we are observing that the initial vaccine hesitancy appears to be toning down a bit and a lot of people are volunteering or stepping up to it. So we have not had a need as of now to introduce sanctions. Should it become necessary at some point that we consider what has been done in places like I think Israel or other places where they will say if you haven’t taken the vaccine you can’t attend a public programme. Should it become necessary that we get there, we’ll advise accordingly. But for now, we are happy at the level of encouragement and volunteering with which people are stepping out and taking it.”

Over 200,000 people in Ghana have been vaccinated against the deadly Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the last six days.

As of Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 8pm, a total of 202,252 people have had their first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination.

The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye made this known Monday afternoon at a press briefing at the Peduase Lodge where the Cabinet is on a 3-day retreat.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye indicated that the figure was likely to go up since there are some data entry challenges and that about a third of the number is still being entered.

He projected that the figure was likely to hit 300,000 when all the data is entered.

He said there has been enthusiasm with the vaccination so at some point, the personnel had to resort to collecting data on papers and get the people vaccinated and as the data is being entered electronically and synched, the figure was likely to shoot up.

The COVID-19 vaccination started in Ghana on March 2, 2021 using the AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India.

As of close of day March 7, a total of 202, 252 persons had been vaccinated with the Greater Accra Region having the highest number of persons – 128,088 vaccinated.

Friday the 5th of March saw the highest number of persons vaccinated – 46,780.

---kasapafm