Science heavyweights to steer new body aiming to boost domestic vaccine production
High-profile scientists and public-health experts dominate on the inaugural board for Ghana’s National Vaccine Institute.
On 11 May, Ghana’s president Nana Akofu-Addo inaugurated the 13-strong board, which will be tasked with mapping out the policy direction and implementation of the country’s vaccine production.
They include William Kwabena Ampofo, president of the African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative, as well as Gordon Awandare, founding director of the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens.
The board will be led by Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, a senior global health expert and former deputy director-general of the World Health Organization.
The National Vaccine Institute is an entity established in a bill passed by Ghana’s parliament in February this year. It aims to coordinate and supervise the research, development and manufacture of vaccines in Ghana.
At the board’s inauguration, Akofu-Addo said that the vaccine nationalism that hindered countries like Ghana from accessing newly developed vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic must never happen again.
“We need to take our destiny into our own hands,” he said, according to a University of Ghana statement.