The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has called on the general public to disregard reports that the service intends to inoculate citizens with expired drugs for its next phase of vaccination.
The service has announced December 14 to 18, 2022, as the next dates for vaccination for persons yet to fully or partially vaccinate against Covid- 19.
According to the service, the vaccine for this round of vaccination which is the Pfizer vaccine has a life span of 15 months and not 12 months as reported in some media space.
Director General of GHS, Dr. Patrick Kuma- Aboagye at an engagement with the media called on all unvaccinated citizens to join the campaign to ensure there are no cases of Covid-19 during and after the Christmas festivities.
“It normally will take years to develop vaccines, because we are waiting for stability to see the shelf life, because this is the situation the World has to come up with the vaccine, so we have been given different shelf lives, so we continue to check for stability.
“So as the time approaches, and stability is still there, World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) extend the vaccine, so the current vaccine expiry for Pfizer is 15 months and not 12 months as stated. So this issue that we are administering expired vaccines is not true, in 15 months’ time if it remains stable, the WHO and other regulatory bodies will extend its use because it’s safe,” Dr. Kuma- Aboagye explained.