Dr. Franklin Aseidu-Bekoe, Director for Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, said Ghanaians must continue to follow the COVID-19 preventive guidelines and take precautions to avoid becoming sick until the country has developed herd immunity.
Despite the World Health Organization's (WHO) declaration that COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency, he said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that nations with low population immunity would not be out of the woods just yet.
Scientists and medical professionals predict that in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus, at least 94 percent of the population must be immunised and immune.
According to information on the Ghana Health Service (GHS) COVID-19 Update website, as of April 30 this year, around 11 million Ghanaians—or 57 percent of the country's 18.2 million target population—had received all of their recommended vaccinations.
According to the data, just 32.9% of the whole targeted population of adults aged 18 and older had received all recommended vaccinations as of right now.
The website states that at the same time, 24,941,992 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been given. A first dosage has been administered to about 14 million patients, or 74.2% of the 18.2 million targets.
Dr. Asiedu-Bekoe stated that the GHS will conduct another widespread vaccination campaign in July to increase the number of people who receive vaccinations.
In order to make sure that COVID-19 immunisation was included in routine vaccinations, he said that the GHS was also creating a COVID-19 immunisation Integration Plan. He noted that "this means that everyone can walk into a health facility to get a COVID-19 jab."
The director of public health urged people who had not yet received the vaccine against the virus to do so and those who had to obtain booster injections to do so.
Although there are currently no serious instances, he claimed Ghana was still keeping track of COVID-19 cases.
"We need to achieve herd immunity such that even individuals who catch it would have modest problems if people wish to consider COVID-19 as a typical condition. If we are not immune to poor immunity, infections are likely to be serious if measures are not taken, the doctor said.
Herd immunity, commonly referred to as "population immunity," is the indirect defence against an infectious illness that occurs when a population is immune, either through vaccination or immunity gained from past infection, according to the WHO.
The WHO favours vaccination as a means of building herd immunity rather than letting illness propagate through any portion of the population, as doing so would lead to needless cases and deaths.
The WHO stated that in order to acquire herd immunity against COVID-19, individuals should be protected by vaccination as opposed to being exposed to the virus that causes the disease.
It said that a sizeable section of the population would need to receive vaccinations, decreasing the overall number, in order to acquire herd immunity against COVID-19 in a safe manner.
Working towards herd immunity has as one of its goals keeping vulnerable populations safe and disease-free who are unable to receive vaccinations owing to medical issues like vaccine allergies.
With each illness, a different proportion of individuals must be immune in order to develop herd immunity.
For instance, to achieve herd immunity against the measles, approximately 95% of the population must be immunised; the remaining 5% will be protected since the measles cannot spread among the immunised. The cutoff point for polio is around 80%.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo reaffirmed the WHO's pronouncement that COVID-19 has been confirmed in his 29th address to the nation on actions taken against the coronavirus.
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