The Covid 19 vaccination program will be expanded by the Ghana Health Service to include children aged 10 to 14. This will be a component of a new vaccination campaign to reach a sizable portion of the populace.
Children who have received the COVID-19 vaccination currently are those who are 15 years of age and older.
Dr. Patrick Kuma Aboagye, director general of the Ghana Health Service, stated in an interview with GBC that the move to boost head immunity is intended to ensure that Ghanaian children continue to be protected from the COVID-19 virus.
“We are not vaccinating children below 16 and that accounts for about 25 to 30 percent of the population. So it’s very difficult to get head immunity but the higher the proportion the better. We are working towards trying to bring the age of the vaccination to about 10 so that we can rope in more people to be vaccinated to help us achieve that head immunity,” he said.
Schools are reopening at a time when infections are on the rise. According to Dr. Kuma-Aboagye, parents and school administration should always make sure students strictly follow COVID-19 safety protocols.
“School is reopening at a period when transmission is very high. We started vaccinating the kids in SHS where the age really falls. We’ve been able to do just about four hundred thousand, but I believe that there are nearly two million of them in the four or three classes,” he added.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye therefore urged parents to ensure their children are vaccinated.