End conspiracy theories over coronavirus vaccines – Elias Sory to Ghanaians

Ghanaians must put an end to the unnecessary conspiracy theories over the Covid-19 vaccines and rather embrace them, according to former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Elias Sory.

A section of Ghanaians have raised concerns over the vaccines with some expressing fears of possible adverse reactions if they take the vaccine.

Some have even suggested that taking the vaccines could lead to memory loss and possibly even kill them.

But Dr. Elias Sory said those conspiracy theories are not healthy for the government’s agenda to inoculate the majority of the public.

“It’s rather unfortunate that people are not looking at what’s happening. We have a disease that’s killing us. What people are looking at is rather a wrong way of thinking. Let’s stop the conspiracy theories and embrace something that’s good.

“If the vaccines are bad, those who were used at the trial stage, it’d have eliminated all of them. Our public health system is one of the best. Many of our childhood diseases have been eliminated and we have the data. Our structure has been set up to deal with anything that come…the positive mindset is that we have something that’s good and we must embrace it.”

Ghana on Wednesday received an initial tranche of deliveries of the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine at the Kotoka International Airport.

The first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccines from Covax, a World Health Organization-backed effort to procure and distribute inoculations for free to poor countries.

“These 600,000 Covax vaccines are part of an initial tranche of deliveries of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine licensed to the Serum Institute of India, which represent part of the first wave of Covid vaccines headed to several low and middle-income countries,” said UNICEF, which organized the shipment from Mumbai, in a joint statement with the WHO.

Health workers, people with underlying health conditions, frontline executive, legislature, judiciary, and some religious leaders are among the first category of people who will receive the newly arrived Covid-19 vaccine.

A statement by the Information Minister-designate, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah stated that Ghana is to begin the Covid-19 vaccination on March 2.