Vaccines coming soon - Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey reassures

Minister-designate for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey has reassured Ghana will soon procure vaccines in the country as she has engaged two countries for supply.

These countries she mentioned are China and Russia.

She said even though vaccines have become the most sought-after commodities at the moment, efforts have been made by ECOWAS to procure 240 million vaccines of which efforts have been made to ensure Ghana receives a portion.

“Efforts are being made by the country to procure vaccines outside. Also, we belong to ECOWAS and Africa Union and under the AU we have the African CDC, therefore efforts are being made internally with companies that produce vaccines and efforts are being collectively within ECOWAS by the West African Health Committee and the Africa CDS.

“I have been asked to engage two countries that have come with the vaccine, China and Russia. I have engaged them at the level of the ambassadors and asked them to try as much as possible to ensure that we are able to procure vaccines because vaccines have become such a hot commodity. Even when you have money it’s difficult. At the level of ECOWAS, there are efforts being made.

Efforts are being made to procure 240million for the ECOWAS region. Efforts are also being made to see what if we can produce our own vaccines on the continent,” she revealed to the committee.

She assured that Ghana will soon get its vaccine.

“I know that Health Ministry has already made the efforts and have engaged manufactures. My job is to engage to foreign ministries to ensure that we are part of the countries that will get the vaccines. This is beyond me because I know the president is engaging to ensure that we get the vaccine. I can assure you that it will not be long before we get vaccines into this country. It will not be enough to cover everybody but will come in tranches,” she added.