Ghana has received the first consignment of measles, BCG and oral polio vaccines, government has announced.
There have been short supply of these essential vaccines for children in the country for months, causing public uproar and anxiety among parents.
But the Information Ministry on Saturday, March 11, said the “Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service receive first consignment of Measles vaccines, BCG vaccines and Oral Polio Vaccines.”
The Ministry added that, “distribution to various regions and facilities underway.
“More vaccines expected in Ghana in the coming weeks from multiple sources.”
This comes just a day after the Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu had told Parliament that the vaccines will be arriving in Ghana in the next three weeks or less.
He announced that $6.4 million has been paid to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), to supply the vaccines.
He further appealed to the lawmakers to assist him in getting the right funding for vaccine procurement.
“Mr Speaker, it is a very serious public interest issue, the assurance I will give and I can give for the first time in the chamber here is that this will not happen again.
“I will advise that you will help me in my advocacy to get adequate funding for vaccines, even the health insurance budget. So when we meet with committees, they have always been talking about it, and even in the chamber, it has come up that if Parliament approves adequately for us and we always have our budget well we will be able to supply. I assure you that whatever challenges happened I don’t think we are going to face these challenges any longer.
“I can stand here and assure the House that within two weeks or three weeks we will get vaccines, even probably before that. I can’t get my hands on a specific date but probably even before that, we may get the vaccines that we are talking about. Throughout the period we have made 6.4million dollars equivalent to UNICEF who supplies us the vaccines,” the Dormaa Central lawmaker said.
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