The Director of the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens has cast doubt on President Akufo-Addo’s announcement to procure 17.6 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine by end of June.

Professor Gordon Awandare who was speaking on JoyNews’ The Probe Sunday described government’s target as unrealistic.

His comment comes after the President in his 23rd address to the nation, disclosed that the country is set to receive the first consignment of the Covid-19 vaccine in March.

President Akufo-Addo was also hopeful that, by the end of June, a total of 17.6 million vaccine doses would have been procured for the Ghanaian people.

The pathologist, however, argued that several countries have already queued for the newly-developed vaccine, as such, “only a few trickles of the vaccine for a small number of people can be procured” by the first half of the year.

“For us [Ghana] to get vaccines in substantial quantities that will make a difference to the people, then it will be in the second half of the year.

“This is because people [countries] have pre-ordered them and we are now trying to place the order so, it will be unrealistic that we will be getting millions of doses of vaccines anytime soon,” he stated.

But in response, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said Prof Awandare is mistaken.

Explaining further, Dr Patrick Aboagye said government initiated processes to acquire the Covid-19 vaccines in 2020, in that regard, he is confident that Ghana will receive the vaccines just as stated by the President.

“… Just as people have pre-ordered, so have we. Either through the COVAX platform and other bilateral that is going on.

“So they [scientists] do not know what we do, we didn’t just start last week and that is why the President can say that he expects those number of doses,” he stressed.