Ghana’s President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says the executive will soon cause the establishment of the National Vaccine Institute that will lead the development and production of vaccines locally.
President Akufo-Addo noted that the Vaccine Manufacturing Committee, established under the chairmanship of Ghanaian scientist, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, will soon be transformed by an Act of Parliament into the National Vaccine Institute.
“Whilst appreciating COVAX and other donors in COVID-19 vaccine supply initiatives, and Government also procuring further vaccine consignments through AU and AVATT initiatives, Ghana, Rwanda and Senegal, in partnership with the German biotechnology company, BioNTech SE, are venturing into vaccine development and manufacturing, with the three countries determined to become vaccine manufacturing hubs in sub-Saharan Africa.
“We want to achieve self-sufficiency in vaccine production to meet future national, regional and continental needs for health security. We shall not then, in the future, be at the mercy of foreign vaccine nationalism and geopolitics,” President Akufo-Addo said in his address to Ghanaians on Sunday, March 27, 2022.
He indicated that the initial US$25 million for building of local capacity, and the facilitation of the capacity of domestic pharmaceutical companies to fill, finish and package mRNA COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis and other vaccines, is the first step towards vaccine production.
