GAVI To Cut Vaccine Support To Ghana - Agyemang-Manu

Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, has disclosed that the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization will soon remove Ghana from its list of beneficiaries. According to Mr. Agyemang-Manu, the GAVI initiative will not supply Ghana with free vaccines following its attainment of lower middle-income status.

GAVI, or the Vaccine Alliance, is an independent public-private partnership and multilateral finance structure that aims at increasing worldwide access to the use of vaccines, particularly among vulnerable children. Speaking at the commissioning of a new office complex of the Ghana Vaccine Institute in Accra, Mr. Agyemang-Manu said Ghana needs to be self-sufficient in the production of vaccines.

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. 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 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.