Shortage of AstraZeneca in Europe won’t affect Ghana - EPI

Last week Saturday, the European Union faced a fresh shortfall of AstraZeneca vaccine supplies as the producers of the vaccine blamed the shortfall on “production problems and export restrictions”.

Reacting to this news, however, Ghana’s Program Manager of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), Kwame Amponsa-Akyianu has assured that Ghana will not be affected by the shortage of the AstraZeneca vaccines as reported in Europe.

Kwame Amponsa-Akyianu explained that with the Government’s proactive measures to secure vaccines from multiple avenues, it is unlikely that Ghana will suffer from a shortage of vaccines.

Speaking to Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show, he said: “We used multiple avenues to get the vaccine and one key avenue is the COVAX facility. So, we had an indicative allocation of 2.4 million of which we have been informed that we will be receiving from February through to May. And that is why we have received 600,000 so it is left with 1.8 million.

We have received a mail that by April ending or early May we will receive the rest and that is why we have so much confidence of receiving the vaccines”.

The Programs Manager furthered that AstraZeneca vaccines are not the only vaccines that are in short supply. According to him, since about six billion people are moving to the same market for the same vaccines, it is understandable that these vaccines will be in short supply.

Meanwhile, he has stated that as has been the commitment of the Government, there will be the procurement of other vaccines such as Sputnik V as well as Moderna and Pfizer if approved for emergency use.

With all these measures put in place, however, Amponsa-Akyianu has advised that Ghanaians who took the first dose of the AstraZeneca must take the same vaccine for the second dose.

Ghana, under the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative, received 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India (Covishield).

The country is targeting a herd immunity of its population as it expects to vaccinate some twenty-million persons from the first week of March.

Ghana’s active COVID-19 cases stand at 3,701 with 698 deaths.