President Nana Akufo-Addo has stated that government has committed US$25million for the establishment of a National Vaccine Institute to spearhead the manufacture of vaccines to meet national and regional needs.

The President announced this in his 26^th update on measures implemented to combat the Covid-19 pandemic on Sunday, July 25.

According to him, the establishment of the institute is based on a recommendation by a committee chaired by Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, which was tasked to investigate Ghana’s potential as a vaccine manufacturing hub.

“Government has committed to inject seed funding of some twenty-five million United States dollars (US$25 million) this year, into this enterprise," he revealed.

President Akufo-Addo said, the Institute will be charged with delivering six clear mandates; establishing local vaccine manufacturing plants, deepening Research and Development (R&D) for vaccines in Ghana and upgrading and strengthening the FDA.

The rest are; forging bilateral and multilateral partnerships for vaccine manufacturing in various areas, such as funding, clinical trials, technology transfer, licensing, and assignment of intellectual property rights, building the human resource base for vaccine discovery, development, and manufacture, and establishing a permanent national secretariat to coordinate vaccine development and manufacture.

The President said the establishment of the institute has been necessitated by the global shortage of vaccines.

“The global shortage of vaccines means that we must develop our capacity to produce our own vaccines domestically, and reduce our dependence on foreign supplies. We must be self-sufficient in this regard in the future, and prepare ourselves better to deal with any such occurrences in the future,” the President said.