The Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye has indicated that people going for the COVID-19 vaccination in Ghana, would have to use the vaccination APP to book an appointment or pre-register before going to the vaccination centre.

Dr  Kuma-Aboagye, who made this known said the GHS was going to adopt a locally developed APP for that purpose.

"We are currently going to adopt a locally developed APP, which will allow us to be able to do scheduling, he said.

"we can do a pre-registration before you go and vaccinate, we can do appointment system for you to go and vaccinate to know where to go and vaccinate, it will generate your COVID passport for you, so we know all those who have vaccinated, and the database will be in Ghana and whatever the world decides, we will have enough database locally to be able to respond appropriately and learn from how, including checking those who have had positive, whether they have had vaccination or not."

Dr Kuma-Aboagye who made this known at a press briefing at Peduase Lodge in the Eastern Region on Monday [March 7, 2021] said the database will be in Ghana and it will enable the GHS to be able to respond and learn accordingly.

He said they are currently doing a test run of the APP.

Next steps

Giving an update on the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana, Dr Kuma-Aboagye said the next steps in the fight is that Ghana will continue to pursue additional vaccines for health workers in other districts and regions for them to be vaccinated.

As of Sunday night, over 200,000 people had received the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the exercise which started on Tuesday, March 2, 2021.

At the moment a total 650,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been received in Ghana, 600,000 from COVAX facility and 50,000 as a donation from the Indian government.

Dr Kuma-Aboagye said the figure could even go up to about 300,000 for the six days exercise as some of the data were collected on paper due to data entry delays and enthusiasm from the public to take the vaccine.

Therefore, he projects that by the time all the data is entered and synched, an approximate 300,000 would have been vaccinated in the last six days.

He added that there were plans to acquire additional Cold Chain equipment including ultra negative freezers as well as sustain public education on adherence to safety protocols and vaccine uptake.

Benefits of APP

Elsewhere in some other countries, the use of the APP alerts the user when their vaccinations are due.

How the immunization app works:

Once the app is downloaded onto an iOS (Apple) or Android smartphone, the user enters information such as bio-data including age and or existing medical conditions.
The user then receives reminders when vaccinations are due, following the national vaccination schedule.
A record of the vaccination is kept on the smartphone.
The app also provides direct links to the national immunization schedule and other useful online information resources [COVID Passport.