Census enumerators in Ashanti Region decline to be vaccinated

Authorities of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the Ashanti region have sent a desperate call to individuals who worked as enumerators in the just ended Population and Housing Census to avail themselves for the second jabs of the Sputnik V vaccine as they race against time to keep the doses from expiring.

Up to 900 doses of the vaccine still sit in refrigerators, waiting to be administered to census officials who had already taken jabs of from the first consignment of the vaccine in March, before they were deployed for the national assignment in June.

Speaking in an interview with on Kumasi-based Angel FM monitored by MyNewsGh.com, the Ashanti Regional Health Promotion Officer, Felix Frimpong said all efforts to get the census enumerators in all the 43 districts of the Ashanti region to avail themselves for the second doses of the vaccines have proved futile.

He wondered whether the resistance to the calls to get fully vaccinated was the enumerators’ own way of protesting for payment for the work done in the population and housing census.

“We are appealing to all the census enumerators in the Ashanti region to go back to where they took their first jabs in their various districts to get the second and final ones; we have reserved 900 doses of the Sputnik V vaccines for you; we risk losing them to expiration if you fail to go and have them”, he said.

Meanwhile, the 6-day vaccination programme for the Johnson & Johnson vaccines ended in the Ashanti region yesterday; many were however left in long queues while the 50,400 doses received for use in four districts run out.