COVID-19: Accra, Kumasi first to benefit from vaccines – Ghana Health Service
The two main COVID-19 hotspots in the country, Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions will be the first beneficiaries of vaccines yet to arrive, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said.
Speaking in an interview with Nana Yaa Mensah on The Asaase Breakfast Show on Monday (15 February), Dr. Kwame Amponsah Achiano, Programme Manager of Expanded Immunization Programme at the Ghana Health Service said the plan is to first target the hotspots.
“We have also prioritized the hotspots and so the initial dose is basically going to be given to Greater Accra Metro and Kumasi Metro because that is the hotspots, so that is what the plan is,” he said.
Dr. Achiano added: “For these hotspots that is the segmentation, it is not a nationwide thing, because for 355, 000 doses if you add the cover, it will not cover the whole nation.”
Cost of vaccination
Touching on expenses, Dr. Achiano said it is estimated that vaccinating one person will cost USD$3.
“So, I can talk of the 355,000 but from the top of my head we have estimated USD$3 per person vaccinated which translates to about USD$1.5 per initial vaccination because everybody is going to get two,” Dr. Achiano said.
He added: “And so you can multiply that by the number of persons vaccinated and you get the total cost, $51.7 million is for the entire 20 million and if we get the operational cost for delivering two doses at the different interval and this includes everything else plus even the cold chain facility.”
Currently, the average cost of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca is between USD$4 and USD$7.
17.6 million vaccines
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had earlier said the government will procure about 17.6 million COVID-19 vaccines by the end of June 2021.
He said, “…The earliest vaccine will be in the country by March.”
Addressing the nation in his 23rd update on measures taken against the novel coronavirus, President Akufo-Addo said: “Our aim is to vaccinate the entire population, with an initial target of twenty million people. Through bilateral and multilateral means, we are hopeful that, by the end of June, a total of 17.6 million vaccine doses would have been procured for the Ghanaian people.”
President Akufo-Addo added: “The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) will use its established processes for granting emergency-use-authorisation for each vaccine in Ghana. As President of the Republic, I assure you that only vaccines that have been evaluated and declared as safe-for-use in Ghana will be administered.”
