President Nana Akufo-Addo has announced Ghana has set up a consortium for Covid-19 vaccines to be produced by German manufacturing giant, BioNTech.
This, he said includes Ghanaian pharmaceutical companies who are ready to package and distribute the vaccines.
Ghana and Senegal will be in charge of the packaging and finishing.
The President also revealed that Ghana’s research institutions are undergoing capacity-building to be ready for the discovery and development of vaccines and other biologicals.
The President disclosed this while speaking at a sod-cutting ceremony for the construction of the vaccine plant at Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday.
“A consortium of Ghanaian pharmaceutical companies led by DEX Vaccine Limited is working closely with BioNTech Rwanda, BioNTech Germany and BioNTech Denmark to package and finish the product in Ghana from the plant here in Rwanda,” he said.
Akufo-Addo also expressed appreciation to Rwanda President, Paul Kagame for the invitate to participate in the historic event.
“This signals to the rest of the world the commencement of this end-to-end vaccine manufacturing facility, involving Rwanda, Senegal and my own country of Ghana,” he added.
To him, the import of the Pan-African Project means that Ghana, Senegal and Rwanda must work together.
This he noted was the reason the relationship between the Food and Drugs Authorities (FDA) of Ghana and Rwanda is being deepened with the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding on Friday, 24th June.
“Through this, FDA Ghana, which achieved WHO Global Benchmarking Maturity Level Three in 2020, and is working hard to achieve Maturity Level Four by the end of this year, will assist FDA Rwanda to attain WHO Maturity Level Three as soon as possible.
“Both agencies will collaborate further in vaccine drug product manufacturing, fill, finish and release in their respective countries,” he detailed.
He added: “Again, collaboration between our two countries resulted recently in a team from Rwanda visiting research institutions in Ghana, with the aim of strengthening institutional development and partnership towards vaccine discovery and advancement.”