Health

COVID-19: 17.6m vaccine doses to Ghana inadequate – Pharmaceutical Manufacturers

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Ghana has noted that the quantity of COVID-19 vaccines that the government is procuring is inadequate for the population.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has indicated that the government is procuring 17.6million doses of the vaccines to Ghana.

In the last update to the nation on the coronavirus on Sunday January 31, he said “Fellow Ghanaians, in Update No. 21, I indicated that Ghana is set to procure her first consignment of the COVID vaccines within the first half of this year. Since then, a lot of work has been done towards the realisation of this.

“Our aim is to vaccinate the entire population, with an initial target of twenty million people. Through bilateral and multilateral means, we are hopeful that, by the end of June, a total of seventeen million, six hundred thousand (17.6 million) vaccine doses would have been procured for the Ghanaian people.

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“The earliest vaccine will be in the country by March. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) will use its established processes for granting emergency-use-authorisation for each vaccine in Ghana. As President of the Republic, I assure you that only vaccines that have been evaluated and declared as safe-for-use in Ghana will be administered.”

But the Executive Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Ghana, Lucia Addae- Ntiri says government must resource local manufacturers to produce the vaccines.

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“Looking at the dozes that are coming into the country what the pharmaceutical manufacturers are saying is that it is a lot of money and is going to drain the public purse, the target is to bring in 17.6 million dozes and you will need two shots so when you divide that by two you will have 8.8 million dozes, it means that out of the 30 million population you will be able to vaccinate only 8.8 million people so what happens to the rest of the population?”.

She said these when speaking in an interview with Alfred Ocansey on the Sunrise Morning Show on 3FM 92.7FM Thursday February 4.

She said “You are supposed to think of logistical cost being able to ship it in, putting in a fridge and all that, transporting it all the way till it gets to the facilities where it has to be and there is also the cost of making sure that people will inject it so when you break it down it is a lot of cost.

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“My understanding is that it takes about $50 million to set up a facility why are we not thinking about the short and medium term so if the short term is to be able to vaccinate 2 or 3 million people the medium or long term should be that some monies would be voted for pharmaceutical manufacturing of vaccines”.

Source: 3news

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