4 local drug-making companies ready to produce coronavirus vaccines – Pharmaceutical Society

•Pharmaceutical Society says four of its members are ready to produce vaccines for Ghana

•The society added that it is awaiting the green light from government

•Government has also said it is working around the clock to procure vaccines locally

The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana says at least four Ghanaian pharmaceutical manufacturers are ready to provide the country with COVID-19 vaccines.

This follows government's announcement that the country is looking to manufacture vaccines locally following setbacks encountered with international markets.

Speaking to Joy News, President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, Benjamin Kwame Botwe revealed that his outfit is awaiting the green light from the government to start with the packaging.

“The necessary infrastructure is available, the necessary human resource capacity is available, it can leverage technology transfer technology as quickly as possible and this what has done in countries like India and Brazil and so on to deal with mass vaccination when it comes to conditions to fulfil, sort of have an agreement with the foreign manufacturing companies that do the bulk, we need to look at issues of patent and we need to also look at issues of technology transfer,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has said Ghana is already in talks with these local companies to facilitate production.

“Their strategy is to do what they call filling and packing first then the science community will also take some time to start developing a vaccine in our country. So that area is also seriously being considered and we are actually on course in that direction,” he said.