Vaccine Shortage: We Will Quickly Overcome This Bottleneck – Health Minister Assures

The Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu has reaffirmed assurances that his outfit will overcome the childhood vaccine shortage situation in the country. According to him, the vaccines would be made available in the country in the “next few weeks, all things being equal.” At a press briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Agyeman

Manu said, “The Ministry of Health will ensure that we stay on track with our immunization record and quickly overcome these bottlenecks.” This, he explained is because the Health Ministry is working with UNICEF, “and we are fast-tracking the procurement processes.” It would be recalled that Ghana Health Service (GHS)

announced a shortage of the routine childhood immunisation vaccine. According to them, the shortage is a result of the depreciation of the Ghana Cedi. “It is three key traditional vaccines that we have run out towards the end of the year. Polio vaccine 0 (OPV), Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG0 and then the Measles-Rubella

vaccines were supposed to be procured in the first quarter of the year but due to the currency depreciation, the amount that was available could not pay.” Under the routine vaccination programme, Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), a vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) disease; oral polio vaccine 0 (OPV); Measles-Rubella;

Meningitis and Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) are administered. Vaccines against polio, Hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza type B (DPT/Hep B/ Hib 1) and six infectious diseases that are particularly dangerous to babies are also among those administered.