COVID-19 Vaccines are Scarce Globally, it will be Difficult to State Timelines – Okoe Boye

Ghana has been struggling to get more vaccines to immunize its 20 million target population. According to the Government, the COVID-19 vaccines have become somewhat difficult to get hold of across the globe.

Currently, health authorities say, they are in talks with other European countries while exploring other feasible options to get vaccines for the country.

In an interview on the Citi TV show “The Point of View,” Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye, a member of Ghana’s COVID-19 response team, said that

“what is happening to Ghana is a global issue. So this government is engaging directly with other European countries who have stock of AstraZeneca and are not deploying them that much.”

In the wake of the scramble for vaccines for the COVID-19 inoculation, the government has promised to do all within its reach to obtain the jabs for the second phase of the country’s vaccination exercise.

He reiterated the Government’s determination to vaccinate the chunk of the population left and assured that measures are in place to explore further to acquire them.

He, however, could not give timelines. “It will be difficult to speak and state the specific date,” Dr. Boye said.

He said that COVAX can’t tell us when Ghana will get the next consignment.

“There are severe supply constraints globally, because of what happened to Serum Institute, the biggest manufacturing plant in India,” Dr. Okoe-Boye emphasized.

Background

Ghana took delivery of 650,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX facility in addition to  50,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from the Indian government and 165,000 from MTN for its mass vaccination program.

It has however emerged that the government is using the services of middlemen to procure some of Russia’s Sputnik-V vaccines but at a higher cost of US$ 19 other than the original factory price of US$ 10.