The president Nana Akufo-Addo has conceded that Ghana is unable to meet its target of vaccinating 20 million of its adult population against COVID-19 by 31 December 2021.
However, he said the West African country is on course to achieve that target by the first quarter of 2022.
“Access to vaccines has been growing. I think by the end of this year, projections are that we would have received some 15 million vaccines. That 20 million target we may not reach this year but we believe by the end of the first quarter next year, we would have attained,” the Ghanaian leader told Forbes Africa.
He added: “And the significance of it is that in a population of 30 million people, if we are able to vaccinate 20 million, it means we are vaccinating the entire adult population of Ghana and that in itself gives us all the immunity we need so as a target, it is a really important target. We are also taking some long-term decisions.
“We have been dependent on other people to provide us with vaccines and that is an intolerable position.
“The pandemic is affecting your population and you are not in a position to assist your population because you are having to beg other people to give you what they have, is not a situation that we can live with. We should have learned our lessons from the Ebola crisis but out of this crisis, we have to recognize the need to have our own domestic capabilities to produce our own vaccine.
“That is one of the important decisions we have taken. We are in the process of creating a national vaccine institute led by very capable and world-class Ghanaian scientists and we are hoping that by next year it will be up and running so we can find strong capabilities to find vaccines for our people.”
At least 1,074 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) pushing the country’s active cases to 9,534.
The death toll hits 1,287 after four additional fatalities were recorded across the country, an update on the GHS COVID-19 dashboard reveals.
So far, Ghana has confirmed a total of 141,295 COVID-19 cases since March 2020.
Source: Daily Mail GH
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