Procuring COVID-19 vaccines in June too far - Haruna Iddrisu

He said delaying the massive vaccination of Ghanaians to June is a recipe for disaster.

The Tamale South MP said this at an occasion to hand over a GHS210,000 newly-constructed health facility at Kotingly, a suburb of the Tamale Metropolis in the Northern Region.

"My advice to President Nana Akufo-Addo is to go beyond the rhetoric of Sunday broadcasts. What Ghanaians want to know and what Ghanaians want to hear: when is the vaccine coming to Ghana, and when are Ghanaians going to have access to it?" he said.

"This is what the President should be responding to. If we had to continue the measures of testing, isolation, quarantine and others, what can be reassuring to comfort Ghanaians is available in Ghana for use by Ghanaians. It is regrettable that we had to be waiting and depending on the World Bank to raise money for the vaccine", he added.

The President said that he expects Ghana to have more than 17 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by mid-year.

“In Update No. 21, I indicated that Ghana is set to procure her first consignment of the COVID vaccines within the first half of this year. Since then, a lot of work has been done towards the realisation of this”.

“Our aim”, he noted, “is to vaccinate the entire population, with an initial target of twenty million people”.

“Through bilateral and multilateral means, we are hopeful that, by the end of June, a total of seventeen million, six hundred thousand (17.6 million) vaccine doses would have been procured for the Ghanaian people”, Mr Akufo-Addo noted.

“The earliest vaccine”, he announced, “will be in the country by March”.

Mr Iddrisu used the opportunity to call on Ghanaians to observe the safety protocols of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), adding that the country cannot continue to rely on foreign aid to fight the disease.

He also appealed to the President to show the needed leadership in the fight against the COVID-19