Ghana, through the ministry of health has been granted approval for the registration and use of AstraZeneca and Sputnik- V vaccines for emergency use towards COVID-19 prevention.
The approval was granted under an emergency use authorization by the Russian direct investment fund on Saturday 21st February 2020.
An initial 350,000 doses of the vaccines are expected at the end of this month with full roll out to start in March.
With 20 million of the population targeted, Government through the Ghana Health Service and other stakeholders have assured the public of the vaccines efficacy.
Meanwhile presidential advisor on Health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare says the emergency authorization for the use of the vaccines falls in line with the Presidents’ promise to start vaccinating Ghanaians by March against the virus.
“Before any medicine can be used in Ghana, our regulatory authority, thus the Food and Drug Authority gives its registration or emergency use authorization and follow the safety and monitor it whilst we are using it, because we have not done any testing here in Ghana and WHO have accepted and given three qualification” he said.
Dr. Nsiah further revealed that the Food and Drugs Authority through the Ministry of Health have written to all offices and thus two vaccines; AstraZeneca and Sputnik- V have been given emergency use authorization following the President’s directives in his recent address to the nation.
According to him, upon receipt of the vaccines, the initial target population will be health workers, persons with underlying conditions, security personnel among others although the vision it to vaccinate all Ghanaians.
“We have segmented the country into groups, the front line health workers, the vulnerable, security services, essential services, the arms of government and other population, so we have done four broad segmentations and in addition we have done geographical segmentation especially to cover the hotspot areas like Accra and its environs, Central region, Western region, Eastern region and Ashanti region. We will use the segmentations for the first dose” he added.
He further indicated “As the President mentioned the last time, the target is to make sure that we vaccinate about 20 million of the population about 60% plus so we can have a head immunity in the country. We are working assiduously towards trying to get about 17.6 million vaccines as quickly as possible before end of the year and we hope that we are able to reach our target but the vision is to reach out every Ghanaian who is supposed to be vaccinated.
Dr. Nsiah Asare was also of the view that the AstraZeneca is able to fight the dominant strain of the Corona in the country which is the UK strain.
“The dominant reported strain in Ghana is not the South African strain. The dominant strain we have here in Ghana is the UK strain .The AstraZeneca is very successive to it, any vaccines which comes, we will make ensure the vaccines fight the strains here.We are also working on vaccines like Pfizer and the other vaccines which are in the system.FDA will examine the dosage and give emergency use Authorization to all those vaccines to be used in the country” he noted.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in its latest update yesterday put the officially confirmed figures at 80,253.
This follows 598 new cases recorded and the deaths are now 577 while the recoveries-cum-discharges are now 73,018.
Source: ATLFMNEWS
