Two Districts in the Central Region have been selected to benefit from the first phase of the COVID-19 vaccination scheduled to begin on March 2, 2021.

Dr Godfred Kwabena Sarpong, the Deputy Director in charge of Public Health, disclosed this in an interview with the media in Cape Coast.

He said the two districts, Awutu Senya East and Awutu Senya West, were among the 42 selected beneficiary districts to receive the vaccines due to the high number of recorded Covid-19 cases.

”By March 2, 2021, we are going to roll out vaccination in 42 districts across the country with the majority of the selected districts in Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions. We have two of our districts as part.”

”The selection of districts in the Central Region is as a result of the high disease burden we have seen there. There is a high volume of traffic between Accra and Kasoa, lots of people live in Kasoa and work in Accra so the disease burden is quite high in these two districts,” he noted.

Dr Sarpong said not everyone would be vaccinated during the first phase in the two selected districts.

According to him, “persons under 18 years and pregnant women were not going to get vaccinated because there was fewer data to prove whether the vaccine was safe for them or not.

He said frontline health workers, teachers, government functionaries and persons with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes and hypertension would be among the first to take the shots.

He appealed to the public to strictly adhere to the safety protocols outlined by the health service to stop the upsurge in cases.

Dr Sarpong pledged the health service’s readiness to work tirelessly to ensure the safety of everyone.