Leveraging Lessons Learned from Yellow Fever and Polio Immunization Campaigns during COVID-19 Pandemic, Ghana, 2021

Abstract

Ghana is a yellow fever-endemic country and experienced a vaccine-derived polio outbreak in July 2019. A reactive polio vaccination campaign was conducted in September 2019 and preventive yellow fever campaign in November 2020. On March 12, 2020, Ghana confirmed its first COVID-19 cases. During February-August 2021, Ghana received 1,515,450 COVID-19 vaccines through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access initiative and other donor agencies. We describe how systems and infrastructure used for polio and yellow fever vaccine deployment and the lessons learned in those campaigns were used to deploy COVID-19 vaccines. During March-August 2021, a total of 1,424,008 vaccine doses were administered in Ghana. By using existing vaccination and health systems, officials in Ghana were able to deploy COVID-19 vaccines within a few months with <5% vaccine wastage and minimal additional resources despite the short shelf-life of vaccines received. These strategies were essential in saving lives in a resource-limited country.

Keywords: COVID-19; Ghana; Global Health Security Agenda; SARS-CoV-2; coronavirus disease; pandemic; polio; respiratory infections; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; vaccine deployment; viruses; yellow fever; zoonoses.

Figure

Distribution of phase 1 COVID-19 vaccination campaign deployment by district, Ghana, March 1–August 23, 2021. Based on population and geographic segmentation, phase 1A targeted the most at-risk groups in 43 hotspot districts; phase 1B targeted all healthcare workers; phase 1C targeted all persons vaccinated in phase 1A during within March 1–9, 2021 (12 weeks after first dose); phase 1D targeted 2021 census enumerators (first dose) and second-dose vaccinations in selected districts; and phase 1E targeted the general population in same districts. Phase 1E vaccination was with the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine (https://www.jnj.com).