With Ghana facing intense external challenges to acquire vaccines to vaccinate about 70% of its population by the end of this year to attain herd immunity against the coronavirus, the country has been forced to fall on diplomacy.
It has emerged that Ghana is banking her hopes on diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom, United States, and other countries to acquire additional COVID-19 vaccines for the country after vaccines obtained under the COVAX facility have been exhausted.
At a farewell ceremony for the outgoing British High Commissioner to Ghana, Iain Walker, Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, urged the UK to help Ghana procure more vaccines.
“We are hoping that if there are any other vaccines available within the continent that countries are not using, we will be very happy to take these vaccines, so I hope that we can engage more and see where these are from. We know that there are excess vaccines in the U.S. We are looking at how we can benefit from that too,†she said.
Ghana has already exhausted a little under one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines so far, having received about 600,000 doses under the COVAX facility and another 350,000 dozes subsequently from the DR of Congo.
Ghana received the 350,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines in May from DR Congo through the COVAX Facility (CEPI, GAVI, UNICEF, WHO), with logistical support from UNICEF. The AstraZeneca vaccine doses form part of the larger 1.7 million consignment of doses allotted earlier to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Over 1.3 million doses have been reallocated to five countries in Africa.
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According to UNICEF, Ghana was selected as one of the recipients of the doses due to its rapid, efficient and coordinated response to this public health crisis, as well as its absorption capacity.
But with a target to vaccinate 70% of the Ghanaian population (about 21 million Ghanaians) by the end of this year, a lack of a clear plan to more acquire vaccines presents a major challenge.
During the President’s last COVID-19 address on May 16, he admitted that Ghana was facing challenges with efforts to acquire vaccines to meet the vaccination targets.
“International vaccine politics and the unpredictability of the supply chain as well as the third wave of infections in some countries in Europe and Asia have meant that we have not been able to secure many vaccines and vaccinated as many Ghanaians as we would have wanted to at this stage," he disclosed.
A feature of the international vaccine politics that the President refers to is the deep inequality that has characterised global vaccine rollout.
Health analysts say nine countries are responsible for three-quarters of all doses administered worldwide, whereas 36 nations have yet to administer a single shot.
Many public health analysts Ghana’s target to vaccinate 70% of the population by end of the year is not likely to be achieved.