Achieving Herd Immunity Critical To Economic Recovery-TUC

Dr Yaw Baah

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged Ghanaians, especially workers in the informal sector to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to expedite the country’s economic recovery.

This is because achieving herd immunity is critical to ensuring that the country quickly recovers from the devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Yaw Baah, Secretary-General of TUC, said.

Herd immunity, also known as ‘population immunity’, is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through a previous infection.

Speaking in an interview with the media on the sidelines of a sensitisation forum organised by the Union for its informal sector wing- the Union of Informal Workers Association (UNIWA), in Accra on Monday, Dr Baah said the nearly two per cent vaccinated in the country was “not good.”

He urged more Ghanaians to, therefore, make themselves available in subsequent vaccination exercises to be jabbed to facilitate economic recovery.

“From the figures I know, just about two percent of Ghanaians have been vaccinated fully. That is not good. We know that in countries where they have been vaccinated they are almost getting back to their normal life, footballs and so on, we see them on the television,” he said.

The sensitisation forum, which forms part of TUC and Danish Trade Union Development Agency (DTDA) COVID-19 Recovery Project, aims at getting more people, especially those in the informal sector to get vaccinated against the disease to enable the State to achieve herd immunity.

The four-day forum, taking place in the country’s COVID-19 hotspot regions; the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions, is expected to benefit more than 500 workers in the informal sector.

Less than two per cent of Ghanaians have so far been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 since the country’s health management body, the Ghana Health Service, rolled out the first vaccination exercise in March this year.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had said that the government was hoping to vaccinate about 20 million of the population by the end of the year

Read Full Story