Mintah Akandoh, a member of parliament for the district of Juaboso Kwabena, has stated that the vaccines that were shipped to Ghana on Saturday originated in Nigeria.
Akandoh questioned why Nigeria was able to supply an excess of vaccines while Ghana was unable to have enough vaccines available to immunize the infants.
On Saturday, Mr. Akandoh said, “we heard that Ghana has taken delivery of some vaccines, but what they didn’t add was that these vaccines were coming from Nigeria.”
Akandoh was contributing to a debate in Parliament on Tuesday, March 14, on the State of the Nation address presented by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The debate was held on the State of the Nation address.
“I have absolutely no problem if the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) confirms that these are good vaccines. However, the bigger question is, how come Nigeria has excess vaccines and we don’t have any? The vaccines that we have received can only be stored for six weeks at a time.
On Saturday, March 11, the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service were the recipients of the first shipment of vaccines for Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG), Measles–Rubella (MR), and Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV).
This came days after the sector minister, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, assured the nation on the floor of Parliament that the vaccines were going to arrive soon.
“Mr. Speaker, it is a very serious public interest issue, and the assurance I will give and I can give for the first time in the chamber here is that this will not happen again,” the Dormaa Central Member said on Friday, March 10.
“I will make the request that you assist me in my advocacy to obtain sufficient funding for vaccines, including the budget for health insurance.
Therefore, whenever we have meetings with committees, they have always been discussing it, and even when we have meetings in the chamber, the topic has come up that if Parliament approves us adequately and we always have a good budget, then we will be able to supply what is needed.
I can assure you that regardless of the difficulties that arose, I do not believe that we will have to deal with these difficulties in the future.
“I am able to stand here and give the House of Representatives the assurance that within the next two or three weeks, we will get vaccines, and even probably before that.” I can’t get my hands on a specific date but probably even before that, we may get the vaccines that we are talking about.
Throughout the course of the period, we have made 6.4 million dollars, which is equivalent to what we pay UNICEF, which is the organization that provides us with vaccines.
On Saturday, March 11, the Director-General of the Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, led the delegation that was waiting on the tarmac of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) to welcome in the shipment.
“Distribution to various regions and facilities [is] underway,” a post on the Ministry of Information’s Facebook page said.
In the coming weeks, Ghana can anticipate receiving additional vaccines from a variety of sources.
