Head of Expanded programme on immunisation at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Kwame Amponsah Achiano, has disclosed that the second batch of AstraZeneca distribution in the country will commence on August 31.

According to him, the Service will inoculate persons who took the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccines in March.

He further explained that plans are still underway to procure more vaccines for the country in coming months.

“We will start on Tuesday. We had hoped we would start it this week but the preparations were quite enormous so come Tuesday, we will start. So, the plan is, we are doing what we call equitable distribution. Remember we have some backlog of Ghanaians who took the first shot and are awaiting the second shot. The last time we did a second dose… we started on 1^st March [with] those who had received the first vaccines. In epidemic control, we normally will want to protect the most vulnerable, then of course we go to those who are stronger… until everybody is covered.

“We still have AstraZeneca in the pipeline. So, by middle of September we would have covered the rest of the people. We are on track and hopefully we will be able to do that. At least we are getting some 600,000 doses”.
Dr Kwame Amponsah Achiano

Distribution of first doses of AstraZeneca vaccines

Additionally, Dr Achiano revealed that during the inoculation of individuals with the first batch of vaccines, the segmented recipients of the doses were the vulnerable population and health workers.

“When we started rollout, we looked at some population segmentation where we targeted health workers, frontline persons and security people… But we have the date of vaccination and all that, that’s why when we were doing the second dose. We targeted those who had received from 1^st to 9^th March.

“So, for this exercise, we’re doing some part of the health workers as well as the general, vulnerable population. We’ve done some equitable distribution to health workers across the nation. We would then also continue from where we left off with those who would have received the vaccines, the first dose from 10^th to 29^th March”.
Dr Kwame Amponsah Achiano

Manufacturing vaccines in Ghana

Meanwhile, Professor William Ampofo, Secretary of the National Vaccination Committee, has disclosed that the country should be able to manufacture its own vaccines.

Speaking at the ongoing committee workshop to begin process of manufacturing in Ghana, he noted that the vision of Ghana is to self-produce vaccines.

“… that is the vision for Ghana’s vaccine manufacturing roadmap. We think that this is possible with the support of all stakeholders working together…”.
Professor William Ampofo

Touching on the strategies to ensure the implementation and success of the vaccine manufacturing, Professor Ampofo explained that government will make use of indigenous firms to manufacture the vaccines.

“This vision starts with the ability to establish domestic vaccine manufacturing plants. We want to strengthen the research discovery and development by academia, research institutions and any groups that will enable us to make homegrown vaccines in Ghana. For these vaccines to be acceptable, our FDA must have the capacity to regulate the process which is at least 70% quality control and monitoring”.
Professor William Ampofo