Ghana Health and the USAID Care Continuum Project Scale Efforts to Get COVID-19 Shots in Arms

JSI country representative in Ghana Dr. Henry Nagai and Ghana Health Service (GHS) disease control officer for the Ahafo Region Stephen Owusu Sekyere recently kicked off the COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Health Talk, a popular Ghanian morning show to continue getting shots in arms. They highlighted the protection the vaccine offers, the importance of vaccination for those with comorbidities such as HIV, and where people can get shots.

As of February 2022, Ghana had received more than 27.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and administered 19.3 million of them. To scale vaccination efforts, the Government of Ghana and the USAID Care Continuum Project, implemented by JSI and headed by Dr. Nagai, will continue to use popular media outlets to accelerate the delivery of more than 3 million COVID-19 vaccinations in the Western, Western North, and Ahafo Regions.

The biweekly TV program will be conducted over the next eight months. The full-hour broadcast involves education, executive interviews, promotions, phone-in by viewers, and testimonial videos and jingles. This programming will be supported by discussions on popular local radio stations and at community information centers in the three regions.

Thanks to the partnerships the Care Continuum and GHS have built throughout Ghana, the project will leverage its existing network to mobilize people 15 years and older, pregnant women, people living with HIV, people with disabilities, and migrant populations, among others, to access COVID-19 vaccines in these regions.

The Government of Ghana confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 12, 2020 and quickly established a COVID-19 Coordination Unit and Emergency Operations Center. A year later, Ghana received the COVAX vaccines and began vaccination efforts.