Ghana prepares towards building vaccine sufficiency
The government has begun preparations towards building vaccine sufficiency as it weans itself off the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI) support over the next four years, the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has said.
GAVI, is an independent public-private partnership and multilateral finance structure that aims at increasing worldwide access to the use of vaccines, particularly among vulnerable children.
Following the attainment of lower middle-income status, Ghana will from 2027 be removed from the list of beneficiary countries receiving free vaccines under GAVI support.
It is expected that during the transition phase the government would bear 100 per cent cost of vaccine production and its timely distribution to sustain immunisation services in the country.
Per the Vaccine Alliance transition policy that aims at moving countries from development assistance to domestic financing of immunisation programmes, Ghana would stay in accelerated transition until 2029 and fully transit by January, 2030.
Speaking at a high level meeting to discuss the draft transition plan in Accra on Friday Mr Agyeman-Manu indicated that Ghana’s transition from GAVI called for coordinated efforts to become fully self-financing and ensure a sustainable vaccine regime.
He said, health expenditure over the years had been poorly distributed with a huge chunk going into workforce compensation, a situation that often undermined quality service delivery.
Additionally, external assistance for health continues to dwindle representing only 11 per cent of total health spending.
“This is our reality and it certainly calls for discussions towards establishing functional systems for coordination, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to finalise interventions on Ghana’s ability to withstand this independence, consolidating the gains without compromising quality and pride,” he stated.
The Health Minister said with Ghana’s quest to produce vaccines from 2025, it was important to ensure financial sustainability to provide a boost for vaccine access and equity.
“The objective is to start manufacturing vaccines from 2025 and to manufacture 600 million doses of various vaccines a year, including vaccines for malaria, HPV, pneumonia, rotavirus and cholera.
The health of our population remains paramount and our path to self-reliance in vaccine financing ought not to leave anyone behind in accessing lifesaving vaccines,” he said.
The Deputy Minister of Finance, Abena Asare, said vaccine financing was crucial in health system strengthening and “our discussions from today will illuminate the path towards sustainable vaccine self-financing as we embark on this transition.”
BY ABIGAIL ANNOH
