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World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) has commended Ghana for its determination to strengthen research and systems for the development and manufacture of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The move, according to the world health body, was a step in the right direction given the inequality between developed and developing countries in terms of vaccine distribution.
Dr Francis Chisaka Kasolo, WHO Representative in Ghana, said building capacity for local vaccine production has become imperative for African countries, especially given the way the continent has been devastated by the pandemic. .
Addressing the ninth biennial conference of the College of Health Sciences, hosted by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, the representative assured that the world health body will support the western nation. Africa to achieve its goals.
“It is also important that we invest in critical care capacities and health systems in general for future pandemics,” observed Dr Chisaka Kasolo.
Ghana in February this year appointed a vaccine manufacturing committee to facilitate the ability of national pharmaceutical companies to fill, complete and package COVID-19 vaccines.
In line with the country’s vision, the Committee developed a roadmap and conducted consultations with stakeholders for Cabinet and Parliament approvals for the establishment of a National Vaccine Institute (NVI) to coordinate the development and the manufacture of national vaccines.
The country, as part of its short-term strategies, is seeking to establish a technology transfer partnership with vaccine developers and to provide internal and external training programs for required personnel.
In the medium term, the goal is to establish local vaccine manufacturing factories to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines and certain other vaccines, in particular the vaccines managed by the EPI.
The authorities are also striving to actively engage in the improvement of the cold chain system to support the storage of the high volumes of vaccines to be produced while developing and translating research laboratories in universities and research institutes. biomedical to develop vaccine candidates.
Dr Chisaka Kasolo argued that the availability of COVID-19 vaccines was essential to significantly reduce the impact of the pandemic in developing countries.
The pandemic, he said, was a threat to humanity and as such it was incumbent on the people to take proactive steps to overcome the challenges it posed to the global economy and systems. health.
Presidential health adviser Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare said Ghana’s long-term goal was to produce a vaccine candidate within 10 years, using innovative technologies.
“It is also envisaged that the human resource base, which includes clinicians, epidemiologists, pharmacists, virologists, molecular biologists, immunologists, biochemists, biomedical engineers and chemists, will be fully utilized during this period”, he noted.
KNUST Vice-Chancellor Professor Rita A. Dickson, in a speech read on her behalf, said the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) had played an important role in supporting testing and reporting cases of COVID-19. since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
She said the university was determined to make its technical expertise available to the nation with the goal of locally developing a COVID-19 vaccine.
The two-day scientific conference is themed: “COVID-19: a health challenge for the decade, the role of health professionals”.
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