After nearly a year of recording the first coronavirus index cases, Ghana will begin vaccinating its citizens against the virus.
The exercise will take off on Tuesday, March 2 in the Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan areas, where a lockdown was imposed last year in the peak of the infections.
The Awutu Senya East and Awutu Senya West in the Central Region as well as Obuasi in the Ashanti Region will also be covered.
In all, 43 districts considered the epicentres of the pandemic will be covered.
The exercise is scheduled to end on Monday, March 15.
Prior to the mass vaccination, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice President Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and their spouses took the jabs of the vaccines on Monday, March 1.
Ghana received 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines from the Serum Institute of India last Wednesday.
The West African country became the first country to take delivery of the COVAX vaccines when it received the consignment at the Kotoko International Airport.
Already, the Vaccine Deployment Plan has been well received by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“The vaccine deployment plan we submitted to WHO, which unlocked this consignment, was well-received,” President Akufo-Addo said on Sunday, February 28 in a televised broadcast address to the nation.
“They have done a yeoman's job, and our nation is indebted to them. We are grateful, also, naturally, to the contributors and managers of the COVAX Facility.”
On Tuesday, at the start of the mass vaccination, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutut II will be the first to be vaccinated in the Ashanti Region and journalists will also be vaccinated at the Ghana International Press Centre in the Greater Accra Region.
Ghana has so far recorded 607 Covid-19-related deaths. The current patients number 5,444.
By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|3news.com|Ghana