Dr. Dacosta Aboagye, Government COVID-19 team
Dr. Dacosta Aboagye, Government COVID-19 team

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has begun administering the Johnson and Johnson vaccines.

The Director of Health Promotion at the GHS, Dr Aboagye DaCosta, revealed this in an interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Friday.

He said the exercise will begin in the Ashanti Region on Friday, August 13, whilst that of the Greater Accra Region will commence on Monday, August 16.

“A total of 11 districts in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions have been selected by the Service for the vaccination exercise,” he noted.

Dr DaCosta urged those who will take the vaccines to eat well and drink a lot of water.

Asokwa, Kumasi Metropolitan, Kwadaso and Oforikrom are District Assemblies selected by the GHS to receive the vaccines in the Ashanti Region.

In the Greater Accra Region; Ablekuma Central, Accra Metropolitan, Adentan, Ga South, OkaiKwei North, Tema Metro, and Kpone Katamanso have been selected.

Dr DaCosta indicated that those who received the AstraZeneca vaccine are exempted from this vaccination exercise.

“We will plead with those who received the AstraZeneca vaccine not to go for this,” he added.

Meanwhile, the government took delivery of the 177, 600 doses of the vaccines on Saturday, August 7, as part of the first batch of the Africa Union’s African Vaccine Acquisition Trust.

So far, 405,971 have been fully vaccinated by receiving both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, whilst 865,422 have received only the first dose.

Ghana has confirmed 109,022 cases of the virus, and currently has 6,765 cases with 892 deaths.