Coronavirus vaccines: Ghana will receive second batch within 14 days - Dr. Nsiah-Asare

Within the next two weeks, the second batch of coronavirus vaccines will arrive in the country.

That, according to Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Presidential Advisor on Health, will include a combination of the free COVAX vaccines from India, and, some the ones that the government has procured for the country.

Speaking on JoyNews’ news analysis program, Newsfile, on Saturday, February 27, 2021, Dr. Nsiah-Asare said that the government is buying vaccines through direct sources, with an aim at getting the required numbers it needs to serve the entire Ghanaian populace.

“The ones which will be coming in a week or two may be a combination of what government is buying directly and what we have from COVAX so it will be coming in combinations. Government is buying majority of the vaccines. We’re at a very advanced stage to get the ones government is buying as well as the one coming from the COVAX facility

“Vaccines from different manufacturers are at different costs. The Ghana government wants to buy directly, as much as possible, from the source, so that we are not going to use a lot of middle men who will put prices here and there all sorts of things. So, we’ll get the vaccines at the right cost especially using the African medicine supply platform, they know the costs and even trying to beat the cost from the manufacturers down a bit,” he said.

On Wednesday, February 24, 2021, Ghana took delivery of 600,000 doses of the COVAX AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (Covishield), making it the first country in Africa to receive them.

The 600,000 doses is the first consignment of vaccines acquired through the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) which Ghana, among 92 countries, has signed unto.