Dr Aboagye Da Costa, Director, Health Promotion Division, Ghana Health Service, says the COVID-19 vaccines in the Government’s custody, are safe and effective and advised the public to ignore misconceptions surrounding the vaccines.
He urged the public to go for the jabs, stressing that the vaccines were key intervention towards containing the pandemic.
Dr Da Costa said this in Accra at the closing ceremony of a two-day Trainer of Trainers Workshop on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Ghana: Promoting Vaccine Uptake Among Nurses and Midwives and the General Public.
The programme was organized by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Medical Association with support from Resolve to Save Lives, a global health organisation.
He said the training programme was to empower the health professionals to change the dynamics of vaccine uptake, stressing, “we have to set an example for the public to follow.”
Dr Da Costa stated that the country could not lag behind in vaccine acceptance, adding that the participants would serve as ambassadors for their peers and for the public.
He said the project sought to transform about 2,000 health care professionals, hoping it was the beginning of reaching out to the population and diffusing the myth about vaccines.
Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, President, GRNMA, said the 79 health participants were trained as “vaccine champions” on issues of the vaccines, the misconceptions surrounding the vaccines and how to address the myth and other COVID-19 related matters.
“Our objective is to train the participants to be empowered and go back to their districts, subdistricts, regions to address the concerns of those who have not vaccinated yet,” she said.
