GMA mounts pressure on govt to procure coronavirus vaccines

President of the Ghana Medical Association, Frank Ankobea, has urged the government of Ghana to do away with politics in the vaccine procurement process and procure vaccines as quickly as possible.

He believes that a timely acquisition of the vaccines will save the lives of Ghanaians and as such “playing politics” at this time is a threat to Ghana.

In an interview with Samuel Eshun on the 'Happy Morning' Show, he shared, “We also appeal to government to go for the vaccines. Those who are critically and severely ill are those who haven’t taken the vaccine. So, will we look on for people to lose their lives? We cannot play politics with vaccines. There is politics ongoing on the international market and we are also here in Ghana talking about 10 dollars and 19 dollars. As a medical association, we are not interested in that. We want government to go for the vaccines so we immunize our people”.

Dr. Ankobea, however, hinted that the success in the vaccine procurement is a shared responsibility. Hence, he has encouraged Ghanaians to as it were to “strengthen the hands of government” to take a bold step in bringing in the vaccines.

According to him, the discussion on pricing and other related matters should only hold when Ghanaians are vaccinated.

The Parliament of Ghana is probing allegations of an overpriced Sputnik V deal which was superintended over the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu .

The Minister appearing before a Parliamentary Committee probing the contract on Monday said the infection and death rates compelled him to ignore laid down procedures in signing the contract for procuring the vaccines.

The Minister said he was desperate to get vaccines and was frustrated because regular vaccine supply sources had failed.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Health Service says as at July 14 2021, only 405,971 people had received their first and second doses.

Ghana’s active cases stand at 3,466 with 817 deaths.