Local vaccine production has received a major boost following the signing of €5 million investment grant between the European Investment Bank which is the lending arm of the European Union and DEK Vaccines Limited.
The grant will amongst other things serve as seed fund for the development of vaccine manufacturing unit at DEK Vaccines Limited while also paving way for the local manufacturing of vaccines against diseases such as Covid-19, malaria and others.
Ambassador of the European Union to Ghana, Irchard Razaaly at the signing ceremony on Monday April 3, 2023, said EU remains committed to supporting Ghana to become the vaccine manufacturing hub of Africa and also deliver on its promises.
“The agreement we are celebrating today also paves the way for ensuring that essential vaccines against diseases like malaria, COVID-19, human papilloma virus, pneumonia, rotavirus and cholera could be manufactured locally as well and become accessible to every child born in Ghana and beyond Ghana and the whole continent because this is what we are speaking about – making Ghana and a handful of country a key provider of vaccines for the rest of the continent. Africa is importing 90% plus of its vaccine. It is consuming 95% plus of vaccines produced elsewhere, and we agree this is not sustainable,” he said.
Meanwhile, Managing Director of DEK Vaccines Limited Dr. Kofi Nsiah-Poku in an interview with Citi News said Ghana will by end of 2024 begin local production of vaccines while its first product, the malaria vaccine will be made available on the market in 2025.
“We have just started the building which is on the Accra-Nsawam road. Off Kotoku, we are about 1 kilometre from the Voltic factory, so construction has started. The official groundbreaking of the facility will be on April 18 where the president will come and unveil it. If all things go well, and we get the funds that we need, we hope to finish the factory by the end of 2024 and then within 6 months, produced the first vaccine. What I will say is that the first vaccine which will be the malaria vaccine will come out of the factory around the middle of June 2025,” he stated.
DEK Vaccines Limited is a consortium of three Ghanaian pharmaceutical companies, Danadams, Ernest Chemists and Kinapharma, selected to produce vaccines for Ghana, ECOWAS and Africa following the outbreak of Covid-19 and the need for local vaccine production.
