Ghana unlikely to get coronavirus vaccine by March 2021: pharmacist

General news for Sunday, December 27, 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

12/27/2020

Pharmacist Kwame Sarpong Asiedu has downplayed the possibility of Ghana getting COVID-19 vaccines by March 2021, as the reality on the ground does not support that optimism.

The UK-based Ghanaian pharmacist believes that while the country may receive the vaccine next year, it may only be possible by June 2021.

“I know we will get the vaccines, but I’m realistic and I think we probably won’t get anything until the second quarter of 2021,” he told Newsfile host Samson Lardy Anyenini on Saturday.

Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed that Ghana will access the covid-19 vaccine in March 2021.

But the pharmacist and member of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has said that vaccine manufacturers have imposed some restrictions on distribution, hence the impossibility.

“The caveat is that you can only get up to 20 percent of your population and for your vulnerable people.

“The other caveat (the vaccine) is that it is not activated until the end of the first quarter of 2021.”

In addition, he expressed concern about the need for Ghana to prioritize the elderly and vulnerable for vaccination.

“In the UK, there is an up-to-date register of step-by-step vaccination protocols starting with people over 80 years old, then 70 years old and inertial residential homes, then vulnerable 65 year olds …”

Mr. Asiedu noted that Covex’s own agreement has established that priority should be given to health professionals and vulnerable populations at risk.

“I wonder, even at this point, if we have identified our vulnerable population in Ghana. So when I heard the president speak and I heard others say that we will start receiving the vaccine in March, I shudder a little because I have been following Covex’s conversation, ”he revealed.

The pharmacist further advised Ghana to take steps for proper storage of the vaccines upon receipt.

“It has to be stored in dry ice and in liquefied nitrogen because of minus 70 degrees … So yes, we will get vaccines, but it will be intriguing to see how the dynamics of the vaccine would work and then even the dynamics of the vaccine, which of the vaccines that we are going to look for by the coach in the protocols ”.

Almost 790,000 people in the UK received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, December 24, with the expectation that the Oxford vaccines, which are around 80 to 90,000 doses, will be approved by Tuesday, December 29. .

He hinted that unless manufacturing countries have received their doses, exporting to Ghana will be unrealistic.

“Currently, of the 1.3 billion candidate vaccine doses likely to see the light of day by the end of December, 15 countries have held them in reserve and rescue.”