India hopes to supply coronavirus vaccine to Ghana - High Commissioner

Correspondence from Eastern Region:

The Indian High Commissioner to Ghana, Sugandh Rajaram, has disclosed that Indian investors have filed a proposal to the Ghana government to be considered for agreement to supply COVID-19 vaccines to Ghana.

He said India has manufactured "the safest" covid-19 vaccine with a high comparative advantage and is the cheapest compared to ones manufactured by other countries.

Speaking to Ghanaweb after a meeting with journalists in Koforidua, the Indian High Commissioner said India had so far vaccinated over three million Indian frontline health workers without any safety concerns raised.

"I think the government of Ghana is in the stage of finalising to see which manufacturer is good and prepared to supply the vaccines here. I am sure they are also looking at the Indian manufacturers. If they finalise to get the vaccines from India, I think it will be a good opportunity to strengthen the friendship between these two countries," the High Commissioner said.

He intimated that considering the total population of Indian of 1.4 billion if they had been able to manufacture vaccines to meet their number, producing for Ghana's 30 million population would not be a great challenge.

On what India is doing to manage the COVID-19 situation, Sughandh Rajaram said the Indian government had put in place stringent measures and initiatives that are ensuring that the country succeeds in fighting the coronavirus.

"With regard to the covid situation in India; Imagine a country which has a population of 1.4 billion people; it is very challenging to manage the situation. But with very strong measures and initiatives, we have largely been successful with the covid situation in the country.

"We see now a daily number of positive cases of 10,000. At the peak, it was about 100,000. We increased our testing capacities and to a large extent we increased the production of our drugs, PPE in the country not only to take care of domestic needs but to take care of global needs (as well)," he explained.

The Indian High Commissioner to Ghana also disclosed that "We supported the vulnerable section of the society who were hit by the disease with more than 10% of our GDP. We also supported the small and medium businesses, farmers, migrant labourers, street vendors so that they could cope with the pandemic.

"India did a lot in managing the situation and with these efforts now there is confidence in managing the pandemic effects. We also built up vaccines in the country. We have two vaccines produced in India approved and now administered for the Indian population and also supporting our partner countries starting from our neighbourhood in supplying these vaccines to them as a grant."

He lauded the Ghana government for rising to the task of managing the covid-19 situation and urged the government to keep up in ensuring that all Ghanaians and the 17,000 Indian population in Ghana are safe from the deadly Coronavirus.

"Everybody has sensed that the situation in Ghana is of concern as we see a large spike in cases due to disregard in protocols. I think leadership has to take action on this and I will be happy to see that all necessary measures are taken…not just the Indian population here but all the population in Ghana will be back to normalcy. That is the objective of any country," he stressed.