The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said it will deploy about 12, 500 vaccinators for the upcoming nationwide COVID-19 vaccination exercise.

This was disclosed at a public engagement on the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out plan held on Friday, 19 February 2021 in Accra.

According to GHS, based on the safety profile of the vaccines, it has targeted approximately 20 million persons to be vaccinated in the exercise, which is expected to begin in early March.

The Programme Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Ghana Health Service, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, said: “Ultimately, the vision is to vaccinate the entire population, but for the now, the initial target based on the safety profile of the vaccines, we’re targeting approximately 20 million persons and these persons are health workers as based on segmentation, persons with underlining health conditions.

“Security personnel, other essential service providers, persons above 60years, students of second and tertiary institutions, teachers at all levels, specialised groups, the Executive, Legislature Judiciary and MDAs, the media and of course the rest of the population will receive the COVID-19 vaccines.”

He noted that the GHS will use a mixed bag of delivery strategies for the vaccination exercise.

“Fixed clinics, already existing hospitals, health centres, clinics, both public and private and also conduct outreach services depending on the area, because there’ll be temporary mobile clinics where people go vaccinate and move to the next spot.

“We’re looking at Greater Accra Metro, the Greater Kumasi Metro and of cause Western will be the next,” Dr Amponsa-Achiano stated.

He also indicated that the exercise will require enormous Human Resources.

“We need a lot of vaccinators for this exercise, so we have planned to train approximately 12,500 vaccinators and nearly 40.000 volunteers with a little over 2,000 team supervisors. These will be used for both round 1 and round 2 of the campaign. Remember the vaccines are given in two doses.

“We have planned a training for vaccination teams to assure quality,” the Programme Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunisation at the GHS added.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during his 23 rd update to the nation on measures put in place by his government to curb further spread of COVID-19 indicated that the country is expected to receive its first set of vaccines by the end of the first quarter of 2021.