Coronavirus vaccines are potent – Ghana Medical Association

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has assured Ghanaians of the potency of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The Association, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the vaccines had helped in reducing severe illness and death and encouraged the citizenry to go for the jabs.

The assurance follows concerns by the Concerned Ghanaian Doctors about the efficacy of the vaccines with calls on the Government to halt the nationwide vaccine rollout.

The Doctors claimed the risks associated with the COVID-19 vaccines far outweighed the potential benefits with alleged increase in the death toll after the introduction of the vaccines.

However, Dr Frank Serebour, the President of GMA, said there was no data to support claims that the risks of the vaccines outweighed the potential benefits because some countries had reduced their death rate with the introduction of the vaccines.

He noted that countries like Italy, US, UK, and others, which were recording high deaths, had their situation brought under control with the introduction of the vaccines.

Dr Serebour said available data and science, therefore, did not support the claim.

He said COVID-19 was still an emerging disease and that Science was still evolving, saying, “as a new disease that keeps evolving, definitely interventions would change”.

He said the fact that people got infected even after being vaccinated did not mean the vaccines were not good.

“As doctors, we should be a little hesitant when speaking against vaccines if not it would go beyond COVID vaccines towards polio, measles among others, which will not help,” Dr Serebour cautioned.

He encouraged Ghanaians to ensure that they got vaccinated for the country to achieve herd immunity to break the chain of transmission and prevent deaths.