Doses of COVID-19 vaccine go waste in Northern Region

 

The Northern Regional Health Directorate has confirmed that about 480 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have gone to waste following the advice by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to halt the vaccination exercise.

The region received a total of 27,000 vaccines to inoculate health workers and some priority groups, out of which over 26,000 persons were vaccinated.

In an interview with Citi News, the Director in charge of Public Health, Hilarious Abiwu, said the remaining vaccines will be transported to the appropriate quarters.

He also explained the circumstances that led to the wastage.

“Generally, the instruction out there is that if you open any of the vaccines, and you are not able to use them, you cannot use them again.”

“Sometimes you could be using a vial of the vaccine, and maybe you are left with some. And when you draw it into the syringe, and it is not up to the dose, you are not allowed, for instance, to draw from another bottle, so then you have to discard it.”

“All of these form part of the total wastage,” Mr. Abiwu stated.

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has vaccinated about 800,000 Ghanaians against COVID-19 since the rollout of the mass vaccination exercise across the country on March 2, 2021.

Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Service, who announced this at Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, said nearly all health workers, both public and private, had been vaccinated.