Health Minister Kwak Agyeman-Manu has announced that the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization will soon remove Ghana from its beneficiary list.
According to Agyeman Manu, the GAVI initiative will not provide free vaccines to Ghana once it attains lower middle income status.
GAVI (The Vaccine Alliance) is an independent public-private partnership and multilateral financial structure aimed at increasing global access to vaccine use, especially for vulnerable children.
At the opening of the new office complex of the Ghana Vaccine Institute in Accra, Agiman-Manu said Ghana must be self-sufficient in vaccine production.
“While the GAVI alliance support is about 80 percent of Ghana’s vaccine, our attainment of a lower middle-income status means we will have to transition from GAVI support by the year 2027.”
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Mr Agyemang-Manu added that the government has since developed the national vaccine policy to translate President Akufo-Addo’s vision of making Ghana a vaccine manufacturing hub into a reality.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on May 10, charged the newly inaugurated Board of the National Vaccine Institute with the crucial task of prioritizing Ghana’s self-sufficiency and reducing the nation’s reliance on external sources for critical vaccines.
The esteemed Board, chaired by the highly regarded Dr. Anarfi Asamoah Baah, Head of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, was sworn in during a ceremony held in Accra.
In his address, the President emphasized the need for the Institute to accelerate the country’s capacity to manufacture its own vaccines.
