Gov't working to address challenges in health sector - Mahama

President John Mahama says his administration is working to address challenges facing the health sector to ensure the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5.

Ghana currently lags behind on MDG 4 on child mortality and on MDG 5 on maternal health.

However, President Mahama has assured that, government is working in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI Alliance), to address the bottlenecks in the health system such as training, data quality, supply chain issues and transportation.

President Mahama made the statement Wednesday in Stockholm, Sweden, while opening a meeting of implementing countries, GAVI Alliance Partners, donors, civil society and vaccine manufacturers in a midterm review of the work GAVI Alliance.

The purpose of the Mid-Term Review is to look at the progress the Alliance has made in delivering against the promises made at the Pledging Conference in June 2011. It is also a time for members who form the Alliance to reflect on how they can work together to ensure long-term sustainable immunisation programmes are available to everyone no matter where they are born.

"With GAVI-support, over the last decade, Ghana has been able to deliver a range of life-saving vaccines that have averted an estimated 700,000 future deaths," President Mahama stated.

"We are strongly committed to addressing these issues and improving our immunisation and health care, and we are tackling the challenges head-on. We have implemented an MDG Acceleration Framework, and we are dedicated to committing as much of our own resources as possible to addressing these challenges".

He further challenged member countries to find innovative ways to deal with minority groups commonly known as "hard to reach" in addressing challenges inhibiting the attainment of the MDGs.

"One of the greatest challenges facing Ghana at the moment is reaching the new ‘hardest to reach.’ The hardest to reach are no longer in the rural areas. They are in our cities, and more specifically in urban slums", President Mahama noted.

The GAVI Alliance is a public-private global health partnership committed to saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.