General News of Saturday, 2 October 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated that the government’s plan to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians by close of year 2021 remains unchanged.
He said achieving that target will grant Ghana herd immunity and with that effective control of the spread of COVID-19.
“It is still our target to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians by end of this year. If we are able to do so, we can achieve herd immunity and slow the spread of the disease and control the virus,” he said on Kumasi-based Ashh FM.
On other issues relating to the fight against the pandemic, Akufo-Addo who is on a tour of the Ashnati Region, stressed the need for Ghana to work towards producing our own vaccines.
“We don’t produce our own vaccines and that is something we need to remedy for future purposes. That is why we want to establish our own National Vaccine Institute,” he added.
Ghana’s first vaccine consignment arrived in the country early this year under the United Nations-led COVAX platform. The 600,000 AstraZeneca jabs were the first to be supplied globally by the equitable vaccine group.
Ghana has since received different tranches of vaccine supplies from bilateral and multilateral sources. The country has currently okayed five vaccines for emergency use – AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna.
Recent supplies include 1.5 million doses from Germany and a combined 2.5 million doses from the United States.
Ghana is however lagging behind a number of African countries in terms of numbers of people vaccinated.