The Chief Executive Officer of the National Vaccine Institute, Dr. Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey, has defended the Institute’s GH¢13 million expenditure on training, workshops and conferences in 2025, insisting the activities are critical to its mandate and capital-intensive.

This follows concerns raised by the Public Accounts Committee after the Auditor-General reported a financial downturn, with the Institute moving from a profit of 36 million Ghana cedis to a loss of 21 million cedis within the financial year.

Appearing before the Committee, Dr Sodzi-Tettey defended the expenditure, explaining that much of the Institute’s work involves building the capacity of researchers, manufacturers and regulators to support the development of Ghana’s vaccine industry.

He said the Institute’s mandate required significant investment in training and knowledge-sharing activities because the country’s vaccine ecosystem lacked the technical capacity needed to support local vaccine manufacturing.

Dr Sodzi-Tettey explained that the Institute’s activities extended beyond conventional training programmes to include efforts to develop expertise across the various stages of vaccine research, production and regulation.

He said the Institute worked with researchers at universities across the country, manufacturers whose production capabilities needed improvement, and regulators who required specialised knowledge to perform their duties effectively.

He added that manufacturers and regulatory institutions also needed support to develop the technical expertise required to establish a sustainable domestic vaccine industry.

According to him, activities involving these groups could be classified under training, seminars and conferences in the Institute’s financial records, contributing to the substantial amount recorded under those expenditure headings.

Institute cites limited technical capacity

Dr Sodzi-Tettey argued that developing vaccine manufacturing capacity was a complex and expensive undertaking that could not be achieved within a short period.

He described vaccine manufacturing as one of the weakest areas of Ghana’s vaccine ecosystem, saying the country lacked the technical expertise and infrastructure required to undertake several specialised processes independently.

“Vaccine manufacturing is not something that you would get up and then suddenly realise that you have the capacity to do it. It is our weakest area in the vaccine ecosystem,” he said.

To illustrate the skills gap, he cited the production of snake venom antiserum, explaining that the Institute had to bring in experts from India to conduct some of the required tests.

He said foreign specialists were also needed to support certain animal studies undertaken as part of the process of developing manufacturing capabilities.

“In the course of manufacturing the snake venom antiserum, we have to bring in experts from India to be able to do some of the tests that are required,” he told the Committee.

“In some of the animal studies that we have to do to be able to manufacture the vaccines, experts have to be brought in from outside of the country to support us,” he added.

The CEO said Ghana had several young scientists whose skills could be developed to meet the country’s future vaccine research and manufacturing needs.

However, he maintained that formal education alone was insufficient to provide all the specialised expertise required for vaccine production, making continuous training and capacity development necessary.

“We have some young scientists for sure, but their capacities will have to be built now and going into the future, to be able to do what we want them to do,” he said.

He stressed that the sector required substantial investment because the technical skills and facilities needed to manufacture vaccines were not readily available locally.

“The thing about these areas is that they are all capital-intensive. They are really capital-intensive, and the capacity is not there. So you do have to train people to be able to do it, and that’s where a lot of the budget is going into,” Dr Sodzi-Tettey said.

Community engagement forms part of the mandate

Beyond scientific research and manufacturing, the CEO said the Institute also engaged communities to assess public understanding of, and willingness to accept, vaccines manufactured locally.

He explained that such engagements were necessary to understand public attitudes towards locally produced vaccines and support efforts to build confidence in domestic vaccine development.

The activities, he suggested, formed part of the broader work required to establish a functional vaccine ecosystem in Ghana, alongside building the capabilities of researchers, manufacturers and regulators.