Parliament has summoned the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, to appear before the House’s Committee on Health to answer questions about the massive shortage of infant vaccines across the country.
Interestingly, although the Committee, describes the summons as an “Emergency Meeting”, it gave five days for the and relevant officers in-charge of Ghana Health Service, National Health Insurance Authority, Global Fund, Ministry of Finance, and the Vaccine Control Programme, to appear before it.
Emergency meetings don’t go beyond 24-hours.
The summons, comes after the Ghana Health Service (GHS) yesterday attributed the shortage of the vaccines used for routine immunization of babies to the depreciation of the Ghana Cedi.
For the past few months, the Northern Region and other parts of the country, have been experiencing vaccine shortages, with no solution in place.
But, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the GHS, had told the Citi Breakfast Show that only three key vaccines are not available, but all other vaccines are available.
The shortage of vaccines, has the potential to increase the vulnerability of children to the diseases the vaccines seek to protect them against.
Under the routine vaccination programme, Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), a vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) disease; oral polio vaccine 0 (OPV); Measles-Rubella; Meningitis and Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) are administered.
Vaccines against polio, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza type B (DPT/Hep B/ Hib 1) and six infectious diseases that are particularly dangerous to babies are also among those administered.
“There are three key traditional vaccines that we had run out towards the end of the year, the poliovirus vaccine, the BCG vaccine and the measles-rubella vaccine. We were to procure in the fourth quarter of the year for 2023, but due to the currency fluctuations, the funds available in cedis could not meet up, so orders are being made now and in the next two weeks, we will be able to catch up.”
The concerning situation has piqued the interest of the Chairman of Parliament’s Health Committee, who sees the need to call the Minister of Health and other agency heads to an emergency meeting on Tuesday, February 28.
Inusah Mohammed, the clerk to the Committee on Health, signed the letter.
“I have the direction of the Chairman of the Committee on Health to invite you to an emergency meeting to brief the Committee on the cause of vaccine shortage in Ghana and the measures being put in place to address the situation, on Tuesday, 28th February 2023 at 9:00 a.m. at the Committee Room 1&2, New Administration Block, Parliament House,” the clerk of Parliament’s Health Committee wrote in a letter to the Health Minister and copied to the heads.
“The Committee also requests the presence of the following institutions’ heads and relevant officers: the Ghana Health Service, the National Health Insurance Authority, the Global Fund, the Ministry of Finance, and the Vaccine Control Programme.”
