Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has said government may be compelled to impose sanctions on persons who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ghana commenced a vaccination exercise last week with over 200,000 persons vaccinated so far.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday at the Peduase Lodge, Hon. Oppong Nkrumah stated that the government believes it will have to force those unwilling to take a jab to do so.
“We are pleased that we are observing that the initial vaccine hesitancy appears to be toning down a bit and a lot of people are volunteering or stepping up to it. So we have not had a need as of now to introduce sanctions. Should it become necessary at some point that we consider what has been done in places like I think Israel or other places where they will say if you haven’t taken the vaccine you can’t attend a public programme. Should it become necessary that we get there, we’ll advise accordingly.”
Over 200,000 people in Ghana have been vaccinated against the deadly Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the last six days.
As of Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 8pm, a total of 202,252 people have had their first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye made this known Monday afternoon at a press briefing at the Peduase Lodge where the Cabinet is on a 3-day retreat.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye indicated that the figure was likely to go up since there are some data entry challenges and that about a third of the number is still being entered.
He projected that the figure was likely to hit 300,000 when all the data is entered.