Health Workers At Effia-Nkwanta Hospital Refuse Expired COVID VACCINES

The Medical Director of the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital in the Western Region, Dr. Joseph Kojo Tambil, has told Accra-based Citi News that the majority of the hospital’s staff are refusing to take the Covid-19 vaccine.

He claimed the refusal is a result of misinformation from the mass media. However, the health workers may have a good reason for refusing the vaccines. 

First of all, the AstraZeneca vaccines shipped to Ghana in early March 2021, had expired last week Friday. Secondly, several countries worldwide have either rejected or halted the deployment of the experimental vaccine after it had caused fatal blot clots in some recipients alongside some recorded deaths shortly after the second dose of the vaccine was taken.

According to Dr. Tambil despite his hospital receiving about 800 doses of the vaccines, only 50 percent of the hospital’s 1,300 workers (some 650 workers) have taken the vaccine.  

“It is so bad that a lot of staff are not showing eagerness to be vaccinated. This has to do with the misinformation and conspiracy theory circulating on social media. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Nevertheless, we are hoping to get most of our staff vaccinated,” he said.

In Europe, more than a dozen countries have halted or rejected the AstraZeneca vaccine. These include Denmark, Norway, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, etc. 

The Ghana Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) is claiming that Ghana has not recorded any cases of blood clots from the vaccine. But the statement cannot be conclusive because most of the reported blood clots were witnessed after the second dose of the vaccine. In Ghana, only the first doses have been administered to the majority of recipients with the second dose expected to have been administered this month.

However, fresh information coming in indicates that the Ghana Health Services (GHS) had delayed the second dose to May 2021.