COVID-19 Vaccination: Use a messaging strategy that will protect families - SEND GHANA report

A comprehensive report that looked at equity and governance as far as the distribution of Coronavirus vaccines are concerned in Ghana has been launched. Titled “Monitoring Compliance of Ghana's National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP) and Citizens' COVID-19 Vaccination Experience,” the SEND GHANA report assessed compliance of Ghana’s National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP) and the equitable uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines. With a focus on how health workers and teachers in particular adhered to the protocols set out for the vaccination of Ghanaians, the report found that many people were satisfied with the processes and had little complains. Speaking to the media right after the report was launched in Accra, the Deputy Country Director of SEND GHANA, Dr. Emmanuel Ayifah, explained that the challenges from the global impacts of the novel Coronavirus influenced this report. “All of us know that 2020 was a bad year globally because of COVID, and Ghana as a country put in place certain measures to contain the spread of the virus. One key thing that was done, of course, was vaccination. “So, what SEND GHANA, in partnership with PTF did, was to monitor the COVID vaccinations. We have what is called the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP), which is protocol that has to be followed, and so we sought to monitor to see to what extent health personnel at vaccination centers were actually following NDVP. “Another was also to assess citizens who have gone to vaccinate, their experiences as to how the vaccination went; whether they were satisfied or otherwise, and once we did that, we also had to focus on certain specific groups: health workers and teachers,” he said. He also explained that it had been established, from the report, that many beneficiaries of the vaccination in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions (where the findings were done), were averagely satisfied with the professionalism of health workers. “You remember that during the COVID, health workers and teachers were prioritized in terms of vaccination. So, we wanted to also find out to what extent the vaccination did well. What we established, in terms of the findings and some key recommendations, was that generally, citizens we interviewed during the exit interview session, were very satisfied as far as COVID vaccination was concerned,” he added. Dr. Emmanuel Ayifah further said that from the findings in this report, SEND GHANA has recommended to the Ghana Health Service to employ the use of a messaging strategy that aims at protecting people’s families and friends. He said that with such a strategy, more people, like they did during the vaccination for the COVID-19, would be willing to participate. The SEND GHANA report was done with funding support from the Partnership for Transparency Fund (TFP). The report also looked at an assessment of citizens experiences, opinions and motivations for vaccinations; vaccination uptake among prioritized groups using data from COVID-19 vaccination database; the adherence to vaccination safety protocols; the distribution of cold chain and logistics; as well as the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among health workers and teachers. The report also focused on eight districts in the Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions (four for each) and involved exit interviews from a total of 677 people between the ages of 20 and 60 plus years. Watch the latest episode of People&Places on GhanaWeb TV below: AE/BOG