The Ministry of Health and the Ghana Service have received the first consignment of Measles vaccines, BCG vaccines and Oral Polio Vaccines.
The consignment arrived in the morning of Saturday, 11th March, 2023.
This was announced by the Ministry of Information via a post on its Facebook page.
According to the Ministry of Information, the vaccines are to be distributed to various regions and facilities for use across the country. It was also announced that more vaccines are expected to arrive in the coming weeks from various sources.
“Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service receive first consignment of Measles vaccines, BCG vaccines and Oral Polio Vaccines.
Distribution to various regions and facilities underway.
More vaccines expected in Ghana in the coming weeks from multiple sources.”
The arrival of the vaccines was part of measures undertaken by the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service to address the issue of vaccine shortage across the country.
The vaccine shortage, which had begun in October 2022, had raised concerns on children’s health across the country, with citizens expressing their disappointment over the government’s inability to provide vaccines for children.
Speaking in Parliament on Friday 10th March, 2023, Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu had assured the Parliament of the incoming arrival of the consignments of vaccines. He explained that a payment of 6.4 million dollars had been made to the United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF) to procure the vaccines.
“I can stand here and assure the House that within two weeks or three weeks we will get vaccines, even probably before that. I can’t get my hands on a specific date but probably even before that, we may get the vaccines that we are talking about. Throughout the period we have made 6.4million dollars equivalent to UNICEF who supplies us the vaccines.”
The Health Minister went on to urge the Parliament to aid in the provision of adequate funds to procure vaccines. According to him, the support from the parliament would help prevent the reoccurring of vaccine shortage on the country.
“I will advise that you will help me in my advocacy to get adequate funding for vaccines, even the health insurance budget. So when we meet with committees, they have always been talking about it, and even in the chamber, it has come up that if Parliament approves adequately for us and we always have our budget well we will be able to supply. I assure you that whatever challenges happened I don’t think we are going to face these challenges any longer.”
