President Akufo-Addo has cut sod for work to begin for the construction of DEK Vaccines Limited, a private company in Ghana, to help the country produce its own vaccines in the future.
The project is a $122.6 million investment, and is expected to produce 600 million vaccines every year.
Speaking at the sod cutting ceremony in Accra, President Akufo-Addo said Ghana wants to be self-sufficient in producing vaccines to strengthen the country’s health security.
“Far from viewing the pandemic as a disaster, before, we were powerless.
We in Ghana embrace fully as well as the lessons it taught us, as well as the direction it is pointing us to.
Particularly it has given us a good sense of how important it is to strengthen our unity in solidarity with our fellow African countries, and it has provided us with the motivation if any needed to be self-reliant.
We want to achieve self-reliance in vaccine production to meet future, regional, national and continental needs for health security.
We shall not then in the future be at the mercy of foreign vaccine nationalism and geopolitics,” he said.
Managing Director of DEK Vaccines Limited, Dr. Kofi Nsiah-Poku speaking a the ceremony also revealed that the factory is designed to have a reserved capacity for any future pandemic.
““DEK vaccine limited is 122 dollar investment with the capacity to produce 600 million doses of various vaccines annually.
Vaccine manufacturing is technology and capital-intensive. The WHO has declared a need for preparedness for the next pandemic.
This DEK vaccine is designed to have a reserved capacity for any emergency or pandemic making it special as a socio-economic business venture.”
