The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has so far vaccinated 16,396,820 people since the COVID-19 mass vaccination programme started on March 2, 2021.

Out of the figure, 6,950,095 people, representing 30.4 % have been fully vaccinated as of June 14, 2022.

The data also said 10,223,563 persons representing 44.7% have so far received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the GHS, 1,006,920 have so far received their first booster dose.

Meanwhile, a new survey conducted by the Ghana Health Service has said 18.1% of the current COVID-19 cases are among children between the ages of 0-15 years.

At a media briefing in Accra last week, the Director-General of GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said the service will scale up its vaccination drive to help contain the upsurge.

“Currently, of the Accra cases, about 18.1% on average are among children aged between 0-15 years, obviously these are unvaccinated children, so 18% of this number are in children.

“So, if you look at the age distribution you can see that 0-5 is 3.8%, 6-10 years about 6.9% of the cases between May and June and then 11-15 years about 7.4%, so that together makes up the 18.1%.

“The youth becomes a critical group that we need to take a look at, and because most of them cannot be vaccinated now, the protocol has to be stepped up. The youngest child who had was six months, the sibling came from school and infected the family including the baby, so that is the situation we have now”, Dr Kuma-Aboagye pointed out.