President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced that the government has constituted a local committee to spearhead a national plan for the manufacturing of a home-grown vaccine to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Giving a live telecast update on the COVID-19 situation in Ghana Sunday night (28 February, 2021), President Akufo-Addo said, “I want to reiterate my determination that we should manufacture vaccines here in Ghana.”
To his end, he added that, “a Committee has been established under the Chairmanship of the former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, the world-renowned scientist, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, which is formulating a concrete plan of action towards vaccine development and manufacturing.”
In the wake of the global pandemic, Ghana received its first consignment of a total of 600, 000 doses of the vaccines last week making the West African nation the first recipient of vaccines from the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility in the world.
Therefore, President Akufo-Addo for the first time publicly, expressed appreciation to members of the COVID-19 Taskforce, Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service for the sterling performance.
“They have done a yeoman’s job, and our nation is indebted to them. We are grateful, also, naturally, to the contributors and managers of the COVAX Facility” an elated Akufo-Addo added.
Vaccines rollout
Commenting on the National Vaccine Deployment Plan, Mr. Akufo-Addo noted the nation has been segmented into four groups, adding this will determine which section of the population gets vaccinated at a particular time.
He said in spite of the vaccination target of twenty million Ghanaians nationwide by the end of 2021; the initial plan is to concentrate on forty-three (43) epicentre-districts in the Greater Accra, Ashanti and central regions.
