The vaccines that arrived in Ghana on Saturday, according to Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Member of Parliament for Juaboso.
He questioned why Nigeria had an excess of vaccines to supply but Ghana did not have enough to inoculate the babies.
Contributing to a debate in Parliament on Tuesday, March 14 on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-State Addo’s of the Nation address.
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.
READ ALSO:
“I have no problem if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirms that these are good vaccines, but the bigger question is why Nigeria has excess vaccines while we don’t have any? The vaccines that we have received are only good for six weeks.”
On Saturday, March 11, the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service received the first shipment of vaccines for Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), Measles-Rubella (MR), and Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV).
This comes just days after sector minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu assured the nation on the floor of Parliament that vaccines would be delivered soon.
“Mr Speaker, it is a very serious public interest issue, and the assurance I will give and can give for the first time in this chamber is that this will not happen again,” Dormaa Central Member said on Friday, March 10.
“I will recommend that you assist me in my advocacy to get adequate funding for vaccines, even the health insurance budget. So, whenever we meet with committees, they are always talking about it, and it has even come up in the chamber that if Parliament approves adequately for us and we always have our budget, we will be able to supply. I assure you that whatever challenges occurred, I do not believe we will face them again.
“I can stand here and assure the House that we will have vaccines within two or three weeks, if not sooner.
I can’t give you a specific date, but we might get the vaccines we’re talking about even before that. Throughout the period, we earned 6.4 million dollars, which we donated to UNICEF, which supplies us with vaccines.”
READ ALSO:
Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director-General of the Service, was on the tarmac of Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on Saturday, March 11, leading the delegation to welcome in the consignment.
“Distribution to various regions and facilities [is] underway,” according to a Facebook post from the Ministry of Information.
“More vaccines are expected to arrive in Ghana in the coming weeks from a variety of sources.”
One Comment