The Presidential Vaccine Manufacturing Committee has presented a proposed amount of $200 million as the budget for the establishment of the National Vaccine Institute.
According to the Committee, the amount would be used to put in place the needed infrastructure, and equipment to produce vaccines locally in Ghana.
This came to light during a stakeholder engagement held by the Committee and other stakeholders.
Secretary to the Committee Prof. William Ampofo presented a draft roadmap and strategy towards the local production of vaccines on Thursday, September 30, 2021.
Professor Ampofo, who is also the Head of the Virology Department of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) at the University of Ghana, disclose that amount will not come from the government.
He revealed it was their hope to raise the money from partnerships.
“This money is not going to come from government. We think that the key strategy will be to find money from the partnerships that are evolving. The first thing is that we will earmark about $20 million for the establishment of the national vaccine institute over the next couple of years. The building has already been identified. There is a lot of work going on to make sure that this vaccine institute will go through cabinet approval, secure parliamentary approval and then become a reality,” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo, in his 26th address on the management of Covid-19, disclosed that he would invest a seed funding of 25 million U.S. dollars for the local production of COVID-19 vaccines.
“The global shortage of vaccines means that we must develop our capacity to produce our own vaccines domestically and reduce our dependence on foreign supplies,” the president said. “We must be self-sufficient in this regard… and prepare ourselves better to deal with any such occurrences in the future.”
Ghana plans to establish a national vaccine institute, whose mandates will include establishing local vaccine manufacturing plants, deepening research and development for vaccines, President Akufo-Addo said.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
