The team lead for the health team of GIZ, the German development agency, Dr Holger-Till has said Ghana is well equipped to kickstart its local vaccine production.
Beyond the establishment of factories to see to their production, Dr Holger-Till said Ghana has strong regulatory schemes and a stout research community to facilitate manufacturing.
“To produce vaccines it’s not only about bringing a factory down here, you need human resources, strong regulations, institutions and you need a research community. Ghana is extremely advanced in the area of regulation, the Food and Drugs Authority of Ghana is one of the best, just like Tanzania,” he said.
“So, the framework condition for vaccine production in Ghana is extremely promising.”
On the sidelines of an event to mark World Health Day in Accra, the medical practitioner and researcher told Asaase News that immunisations should be available commercially by 2024.
“According to the plan, hopefully we are looking at finishing the vaccine in 2024 if the framework conditions are favorable,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ghana’s presidential advisor on health, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare said the COVID-19 pandemic exposed certain lapses in the country’s health systems that are being strengthened at the district, regional, and national levels.
“We realised that our health care system was a bit weak, so the policies we have put in place is to strengthen from the district, regional and national level.”
Nsiah-Asare said policies such as the Agenda 111 projects and the local vaccine production have been implemented to fill in the lapses exposed.
“That’s the reason the president has started a comprehensive health infrastructural system – Agenda 111, so that every district will have a district hospital, every region will have a regional hospital and also we added mental health to it. The next one is also to make sure we can produce our own vaccines in the long run for theses pandemics and the third one is strengthen our human resources.”
Caleb Ahinakwah
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