The Ministry of Information, Republic of Ghana, has debunked the false publication made by a number of reputable online portals and newspapers that claim the Government will sanction persons who refuse to take the COvD-19 vaccine.
The Ministry declared this as false in a statement signed by the Public Relations Officer, Munira Karim on March 10, 2021. 
He noted that the said reportage is false and that Government has neither taken nor announced such a decision.
For the avoidance of doubt, he gave the quotation of the remarks by the Minister for Information at a press briefing in Peduase on Monday, March 8, 2021, when asked about whether or not sanctions will be imposed on persons who refused the COVD-19 vaccines.
“As of now, there are no sanctions that have been rolled out. We are encouraging strongly that people should take the vaccine and we are pleased that we are observing that the initial vaccine hesitancy appears to be toning down a bit and we congratulate you our colleagues in the media as you are helping us.
“We congratulate our colleagues in NCCE, ISD. As we are getting the message out, we are noticing that hesitancy is gradually coming down and a lot more people are volunteering to take the vaccine. So we have not had a need as of now to introduce any sanctions. Should it become necessary at some point, that we consider either what has been done I think in places like Israel or other places, where they will say if you haven’t taken the vaccine you can’t attend a public programme; 1f you haven’t taken the vaccine I think in Dubai, you have to do a PCR test at your own cost every week or something, he stated.
He further stated that if it becomes necessary that they get there, they would advise accordingly but for now, “we are happy at the level of encouragement and volunteering with which people are stepping up and taking it”
He urged the general public to ignore such false publications while concluding that Ghanaians are encouraged to take the vaccine to reduce the risk of severe COVID-19 illness.
