The health needs of Ghanaians must remain paramount in COVID fight – Minority to gov’t

The Minority in Parliament is admonishing the government to consider Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) arrangements to secure COVID-19 vaccines for Ghanaians.

According to the group, the government hasn’t put enough effort into securing the vaccines despite making budgetary allocations for them.

Their suggestion follows a delay in the procurement of vaccines for the second phase of the inoculation of persons who received the first jab.

The Ranking Member on the Health Committee in Parliament, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, addressing the media, recommended Public-Private-Partnerships as an alternative to procuring more vaccines.

“We know that India, a major exporter of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, is currently facing challenges with high numbers of infections and associated deaths. However, the government has had almost three months to put in place a vaccination plan and it is rather unfortunate that such a plan should now be rendered almost ineffective because of a challenge with one supplier.”

“The health needs of Ghanaians must remain paramount in all considerations of this government and failure is not an option. If funding is becoming a challenge for the government, it should consider partnering the private sector in a PPP arrangement to source for these vaccines and supply them to the public.”

The government has faced challenges in procuring additional vaccines to meet the initial eight-week window given to persons who received the first jab, to get their second dose.

The Ghana Health Service recently issued a communiqué postponing the second phase of vaccination exercise for persons who have taken the first jab.

A total of 755,686 people have received their first jabs of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, with the Greater Accra Region having the highest number of inoculated persons.