President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has disclosed that Ghana will soon establish a National Vaccine Institute as part of plans to examine the country’s ability to be one of the vaccine manufacturing hubs in the world.
This he said, has become necessary due to the shortage of vaccines across the world and the need to less depend on foreign aids for vaccines.
During his 26th COVID-19 update on 25th July, 2021, the President said Government has committed to inject seed funding of twenty-five million United States
dollars (US$25 million) into the project.
He revealed that the Committee established, under the leadership of the world-renowned Ghanaian scientist, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, to investigate Ghana’s potential as a vaccine manufacturing hub, to meet national and regional needs, has presented its preliminary report which, amongst others, recommends the establishment of a National Vaccine Institute to spearhead this development.
The Institute will be charged with delivering six clear mandates which include establishing local vaccine manufacturing plants; deepening Research & Development (R&D) for vaccines in Ghana and upgrading and strengthening the FDA, he stated.
President Akufo Addo further indicated that others are forging bilateral and multilateral partnerships for vaccine manufacturing in various areas, such as funding, clinical trials, technology transfer, licensing, and assignment of intellectual property rights; building the human resource base for vaccine discovery, development, and manufacture; and finally establishing a permanent national secretariat to coordinate vaccine development and manufacture.
On Government’s new Covid-19 procurement plans, he noted that, “We are expecting, through the COVAX facility, one million Pfizer vaccines from the United 4 States of America, two hundred and twenty-nine thousand, six hundred and seventy (229,670) Pfizer vaccines from the African Union, and two hundred and forty-nine thousand (249,000) AstraZeneca vaccines from the United Kingdom.”
He also stated that Government is in the process of procuring seventeen million (17 million) single dose per person Johnson & Johnson vaccines, through the African Medicine Supply Platform, in this quarter.
“Government has upgraded the national, regional and district cold chain facilities in order to widen access to vaccines like Pfizer and Modena, that require minus seventy degrees Celsius (-70℃) cold chains”, he indicated.
These include sixteen (16) ultra-low cold freezers, fifty-eight (58) units of ultralow freezers, fifty (50) normal vaccine refrigerators, three hundred (300) boxes to be filled with ice packs, three hundred (300) ice packed freezers, ten (10) cold chain vans, and one hundred and twenty (120) temperature monitoring devices.
“I thank, in particular, UPS, the American multinational shipping, receiving and supply chain Management Company, for their generous donation towards this development.” He added.
President Akuffo Addo also stressed on government’s commitment to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaian adults which is the entire adult population by the end of December this year.
So far, one million, two hundred and seventy-one thousand, three hundred and ninety-three (1,271,393) vaccine doses have been administered, with eight hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and twenty-two (865,422) persons having received a single jab, and four hundred and five thousand, nine hundred and seventy-one (405,971) persons have received their full dose of two (2) jabs.
Source: Rosemond Asmah/ATLFMNEWS
