Dormaa Central Municipality records first COVID-19 death

The Dormaa Central Municipality has recorded its first COVID-19 death this year, Mr. Stephen Nyarkoh-Ameyaw, the Municipal Health Director of Health Services announced on Monday, February 28.

He said the victim, a resident of Dormaa-Ahenkro, was over 60 years.

Mr. Nyarkoh-Ameyaw disclosed at the Directorate’s 2021 Annual Performance Review Meeting held at Dormaa-Ahenkro in the Bono Region.

The meeting was attended by stakeholders, including staff of the Directorate and some personnel of the Dormaa Presbyterian Midwifery Training School.

He praised health officers in the Municipality for their hard work in ensuring the provision of quality health service delivery during the year under review, particularly in helping to manage efficiently the COVID-19 situation in the Municipality.

Mr. Nyarkoh-Ameyaw indicated though there was a decline of COVID-19 cases in the Municipality, it was necessary to ensure strict enforcement of protocols.

He urged health workers to increase efforts to vaccinate particularly people in the sub-districts, where there was poor vaccination coverage for the second dose, to check the spread of the disease.

"The reason we witnessed low coverage of COVID-19 vaccination in the second dose at most of the sub-districts is that indigenes who travelled from distant communities to Dormaa-Ahenkro during market days took the opportunity to go for the vaccination at the centre located at the Municipal Health Directorate,” Mr. Nyarkoh-Ameyaw explained.

Mr. Daniel Kwame Owusu-Amponsah, the Municipal Disease Control Officer said the Directorate had taken delivery of 74,482 doses of COVID-19 vaccine and gave the breakdown that Pfizer vaccines 13,008, Johnson and Johnson, 2,020, Moderna 6,638 and AstraZeneca 52, 816.

Mr. Owusu-Amponsah said major challenges facing the Directorate in the effort to prevent the COVID-19 spread included the irregular release of funds for surveillance, use of unapproved routes by foreign nationals, and non-adherence to protocols by members of the public.