Ghanaians have been asked by religious leaders in Ghana not to associate the coronavirus vaccines with the ‘666’ end-time prophecy.
According to the religious leaders, the vaccines have been produced to cure the coronavirus infection and has got nothing to do with Bible prophecies.
There have been conspiracy theories regarding the emergence of the COVID-19 vaccines with a section of the population claiming that it marks the beginning of the end time prophecies.
However, Director of Public Affairs, Seventh Day Adventist (SDA), Dr Solace Asafo, speaking to an Accra –based TV station said “the mark is not the literal mark you receive on your forehead or on your hand or anything or a chip implanted in you. That is not the mark. By our doctrine and according to scripture, that mark is by owing allegiance to a certain system that makes you do certain things contrary to the word of God.”
The General Superintendent (Overseer) of the Assemblies of God, Rev. Dr. Paul Frimpong-Manso, for his part said “When this sickness came people were talking about 5G, that it was manufactured in Chinese laboratories and lot of things and so now that we are getting a solution, out of ignorance they are trying to say a lot of things. We are saying that let us trust our doctors, let us trust our scientist.”
The Deputy Ameer of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Alhaji Ahmed Anderson, said “The purpose of God creating us is to have healthy life and be able to worship him so why would we say that something is an end time curse or disease and therefore we should stay aloof until we see ourselves completely exterminated from the surface of the earth, that will be very irresponsible whether we are religious people or people of no faith at all.”
Religious leaders have been listed as part of the segmented population to receive the first 600,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccines received on Wednesday, February 24.
The deployment of the vaccines is scheduled for Tuesday, March 2 in the Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi metropolitan areas. Awutu Senya East and Awutu Senya West in the Central Region as well as Obuasi will also be covered.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Minister-designate for Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the Covid-19 “vaccination will be conducted in phases among segmented populations”.
“The first segment of the population that will receive from the 600,000 doses will be health workers, adults 60 years and over, people with underlying health conditions, frontline executive, legislature, judiciary and their related staff, frontline security personnel, some religious leaders, essential workers, teachers and other personalities in Greater Accra Metro including Awutu Senya West and Awutu Senya East in the Central Region.”
In the early days of the outbreak of the viral disease in Ghana, some religious leaders lived in denial, espousing divine protection.
However, churches have since instituted temporal measures to ensure that the disease does not spread during services.
Social distancing, wearing of masks and hand washing-cum-sanitising are strictly enforced by churches.
