Six more person have died of COVID-19 taking Ghana’s death toll to 1,319, the latest update from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said.
The country’s active cases have also increased to 13,663 after 687 new coronavirus cases were confirmed at the laboratories.
As at 3 January , 2022, the GHS reports that the country’s total confirmed cases increased to 149,367, out of which 134,385 have recovered.
So far, 48 cases have been classified as severe while 11 remain critical, according to GHS.
Cases detected at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) are 5,833 with 4,136 recoveries so far.
Vaccination
So far 8,893,267 persons have been vaccinated across the country as at 5 January 2022, the Ghana Health Service said.
Breakdown of regional cases
Greater Accra Region – 83,000
Ashanti Region – 21,964
Western Region – 7,977
Eastern Region – 6,717
Volta Region – 5,744
Central Region – 5,267
Bono East Region – 2,817
Bono Region – 2,214
Northern Region – 1,808
Upper East Region – 1,609
Ahafo Region – 1,113
Western North Region – 1,078
Oti Region – 889
Upper West Region – 747
North East Region – 318
Savannah Region – 272
Ghana will meet 20 million herd immunity early 2022
The President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is optimistic that Ghana will be able to vaccinate about 20 million individuals by the end of the first quarter of 2022.
“Access to vaccines has been growing. I think by the end of this year, projections are that we would have received some 15 million vaccines. That 20 million target we may not reach this year but we believe by the end of the first quarter next year, we would have attained,” Akufo-Addo said in an interview with Forbes Africa.
He added: “And the significance of it is that in a population of 30 million people, if we are able to vaccinate 20 million, it means we are vaccinating the entire adult population of Ghana and that in itself gives us all the immunity we need so as a target, it is a really important target. We are also taking some long-term decisions.”
At least 1,074 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) pushing the country’s active cases to 9,534.
The death toll hits 1,287 after four additional fatalities were recorded across the country, an update on the GHS COVID-19 dashboard reveals.
So far, Ghana has confirmed a total of 141,295 COVID-19 cases since March 2020.
Fourth wave
Meanwhile, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the presidential advisor on health, has confirmed that Ghana is in a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as the country records over a 1000 cases daily.
Ghana currently has over 8,500 active cases and it is largely attributed to the new variant of the COVID-19, the Omicron which was discovered in South Africa early this month but has spread rapidly around the world.
Speaking on The Big Bulletin on Tuesday (28 December), Dr Nsiah-Asare said Ghana is also experiencing community spread of the new variant.
“We’re recording over a 1000 cases every day for the past few days. Now we’ve community spread, especially in Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions. We’re definitely in the fourth wave. So everybody has to be very careful. We need to wear our masks and avoid crowded areas,” he told Asaase News’ Beatrice Adu.
Fred Dzakpata
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