GHS reveals why it is not administering Russian Sputnik vaccine

The Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service has said inadequate stock of the Russian Sputnik vaccine is preventing his outfit from administering it.

According to Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, although the country had registered both the Astrazeneca and Sputnik vaccines, the Sputnik vaccines are not enough to be added to the national vaccine rollout plan.

“The reason is that we need numbers. You see, we need to get a good plan, and it’s about numbers. So for now FDA has registered Astrazeneca and Sputnik, but we haven’t gotten the numbers of sputnik for us to get a clear plan,” he said.

Speaking on Joy New’s AM Show, he stated that the government is hoping to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians before the year ends. This, he noted will help build the country’s immunity.

“And so if you have let’s say ten thousand [of the Sputnik vaccine], how are you going to distribute it? It’s too minute a number so that’s why we are expecting to get some large numbers of the Sputnik in the next few days or a week. And we’ll now see how to roll it out. So now it is about the numbers,” he said.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured Ghanaians of additional 17.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by June 2021, with more to come later in the year.

Delivering the State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Accra last Tuesday, he said a total of 262,335 Ghanaians had received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccines at 10:30 am on March 9.

He said government was working hard towards realising its goal to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians and called for the support of all to make it a success.