Ghana’s Immunisation Coverage Remains Best In The World Despite Challenges – Health Minister

The Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has lauded Ghana’s immunisation coverage.

Addressing the nation on the vaccine shortage on Tuesday, he noted that “despite this challenge, Ghana’s immunisation performance coverage remains among the best in the world.”

This, he attributed to the country recording high coverage in the year 2021.

“The Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) has been a flagship disease control programme in the country and arguably one of the best programmes if not the best in the sub-region with high coverage levels of over 95%.”

According to him, the Ministry has an established system for forecasting, procurement, supply and distribution of routine vaccines, and monitoring their use.

He also reiterated that there will vaccines in stock in the “next few weeks, all things being equal.”

This, he explained is because the Health Ministry is working with UNICEF, “and we are fast-tracking the procurement processes.”

“The Ministry of Health will ensure that we stay on track with our immunization record and quickly overcome these bottlenecks.”

Touching on the measles outbreak in the Northern Region, Mr Agyemang-Manu debunked claims of recorded deaths.

“It is important to correct the erroneous impression that there have been deaths from measles in Ghana recently. For the avoidance of doubt, there have been no deaths from the recently recorded spike in measles cases.

“Indeed there have been no deaths since 2003 though we have recorded cases annually,” he stressed.