99.9% of vaccination officials have integrity - Programme Manager on vaccine theft

The head of government’s COVID-19 vaccination programme, Dr Kwame Amponsah-Achiano insists that the majority of officials working on the programme have credibility.

His comments come on the back of reported theft of COVID-19 vaccines by some officials associated with the government vaccination exercise.

According to reports, Stephen Dzisenu, a Disease Control Officer at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital and Lord Pabitey, a Disease Control Officer at the La Bawalashie Polyclinic, stole a combined 62 doses of the vaccine.

The stolen vaccines were said to have been delivered to one Cosmos Allotey, an Occupational Health and Safety Officer, who allegedly administered the vaccines at a cost of GHS200 per jab.

Also, one Joseph Kning Gaisie who is a Project Assistant and a former Laboratory Technician at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital is also being held by police for abetment of crime.

The suspects have all been arrested and are assisting in investigations with the exception of Lord Pabitey.

But reacting to the news items, Dr Achianoo told Citi News in an interview monitored by GhanaWeb, stressed that the case is being treated as an isolated incident whiles vouching for the integrity of his officials.

“Actually the people who have been named, we know two of them who are in-charge of vaccines, and they know the processes of accountability, so they know the inside out. Nobody from outside can do that.

“We were quite surprised, but we have men of integrity. About 99.9 percent of our people have integrity, so we will treat it as an isolated case,” he added.

Ghana has so far taken delivery of about 800,000 vaccines.

Two vaccines; the Astrazeneca and the Sputnik V have been approved for use in the country.

Dr Achiano however disclosed that plans are far advanced to add Pfizer to the list.

“We’ve also sent an expression of interest within COVAX for Pfizer for which reason we are preparing the infrastructure, in terms of the cold chain,” he said.