[ 2021-02-15 ]

Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director General of Ghana Health Service

COVID-19 vaccination plan: Govt estimates GH¢295m for 20 million people
The country has estimated to spend about GH¢294.5
million (approximately $51.7 million) to vaccinate
the initial 20 million people.
The summary budget covers operational costs for
phase one of the three-phase National Vaccine
Deployment Plan (NVDP) for COVID-19.



Presenting highlights of the plan last Friday at a
webinar in Accra organised by the Centre for
Social Justice to create awareness of the NVDP,
the Programme Manager of the Expanded Programme on
Immunisation (EPI) of the Ghana Health Service
(GHS), Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, said an estimated
$3 would be spent on each person to be
vaccinated.

Who to cover

He said the exercise would be in three phases,
with the first phase constituting a segmented
group of 20 million people.

“Distribution strategies will initially be based
on segmentation of the population based on
vulnerabilities. But the ultimate is the entire
population. The initial target is 20 million
people,” he said.



Beneficiaries under the first phase included
health workers, people with known underlying
health conditions and security personnel, Dr
Amponsa-Achiano said.

The second phase, he said, would cover other
essential service providers, people above 60
years, second-cycle and tertiary students, all
teachers, members of the three arms of government
and the media.

He added that phase three would involve other
members of the population, except children under
16 and pregnant women.

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He indicated, however, that the programme would be
expanded to include children under 16 and pregnant
women over time when more safety information
became available.

The programme manager explained that since the
plan was a living document, it was subject to
reviews and updates when they became necessary.



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Break down

Dr Amponsa-Achiano said the estimate covered
additional cold chain facilities that would be
needed for storage.

Breaking down the budget, he said the items on the
budget included coordination, estimated to cost
$2.26 million; communication, costing $795,106;
logistics and waste management, costing $24.78
million; training and service delivery, costing
$21.02 million, and data management, monitoring
and evaluation, costing $1.1 million.

Additionally, he said, disease surveillance and
safety monitoring were estimated at $1.63 million,
while operational research would cost $81,125.

Timelines

Although the three-phase exercise was planned to
start on April 14 and end on October 20, this
year, Dr Amponsa-Achiano said the exercise would
now start two weeks earlier due a charge by
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for it to be
pushed forward.

“Initially, we proposed those dates, but based
on the President’s vision, they have been
revised to start two weeks before the scheduled
time, meaning it will start in March, instead of
April, all things being equal,” he indicated.

He pointed out that the first two phases would
travel two rounds each, within two months, each
round lasting at least 14 days.

Infrastructure

Dr Amponsa-Achiano said the deployment would be
done within the existing healthcare infrastructure
through the EPI under the GHS.

There would be 12,471 vaccinators and 37,413
volunteers, while 2,079 team supervisors would be
deployed for the exercise, he said.

The EPI Manager said the execution strategy
included the use of existing public and private
health facilities; the outreach strategy, where
vaccinators would go into communities to
vaccinate, and the camp-out method, usually used
for island communities, where vaccinators pitched
camp until all the target population was
vaccinated before leaving.

Benefits

He said vaccination against the COVID-19 was an
additional preventive measure to complement other
interventions, such as the preventive protocols.

“There is the likelihood of the demand for proof
of COVID-19 vaccination for international travels
and engagements in the future. It will contribute
to a reduction in COVID-19 morbidity and
mortality, reduce disruptions in social, economic
and educational functions and enhance the mental
and psycho-social well-being of the Ghanaian
population,” he said.

Background

President Akufo-Addo, in his 20th address to the
nation on the COVID-19, had given an assurance
that the government would ensure that the COVID-19
vaccines to be deployed in the country were
effective and safe.

On Sunday, January 31, this year, he said the
country was expected to receive its first
consignment of the vaccines in March 2021.

He said, however, that through bilateral and
multilateral means, “we are hopeful that, by the
end of June, a total of 17.6 million vaccine doses
would have been procured for the Ghanaian
people”.

According to him, the target was to vaccinate
“the entire population, with an initial target
of 20 million people”.

The World Bank has estimated that Ghana will need
a minimum of $180 million to procure vaccines that
can cover 60 per cent of its population.

The Minister-designate for Health, Mr Kwaku
Agyemang-Manu, told Parliament’s Appointments
Committee last Monday that the country had ordered
355,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

Source - Graphic Online

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