President John Dramani Mahama has said that through partnership with Gavi, Ghana has achieved 97 per cent immunization coverage.
This, he said, means that another three per cent was missing and that they were working hard to find those 65,000 children who were in remote areas that were difficult to reach.
“And I know that working with Gavi, we’ll be able to find those children and also give them the life-saving vaccines,” President Mahama stated in his remarks at Gavi’s High-Level Pledging Summit in Brussels, Belgium.
The Gavi is an international organisation created in 2000 to improve access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries.
President Mahama noted that Ghana was a lower-middle-income country, and that their partnership with Gavi was one of co-finance.
He said in the past, access to vaccines was close to zero in their part of Africa, however, today, Gavi had changed all that and giving hope to millions of children.
President Mahama said across the world, many children were growing up to become responsible citizens of their communities because their lives were saved by Gavi’s immunization.
“In Ghana, we’re proud to be partners with Gavi,” the President stated.
He said he was proud to say that over the recent years, they had spent almost $67 million on vaccines in partnership with Gavi.
He said one of his first decisions as President was to uncap the National Health Insurance Fund.
He said the previous Government had put a cap on the statutory fund of the National Health Insurance Fund, so that excess funding above a certain percentage of the budget went back into the consolidated fund.
President Mahama said by uncapping the National Health Insurance Fund, they had been able to give the Insurance Fund more than GH¢3.5 billion, which has enabled the Health Insurance Fund, that puts up the funding for their partnership with Gavi to be able to front-load $20 million for their co-finance partnership with Gavi this year.
“So on behalf of the children, I want to say thank you to Gavi. We are hoping that we’ll fast-track our weaning of Gavi by 2030,” President Mahama said.
“We’re supposed to go off Gavi funding by 2030.
“And it’s my expectation that we will work hard to be like Indonesia and in future become a donor country to Gavi.
“On behalf of the children of Ghana, I want to say thank you to Gavi. We appreciate, and we’re proud of your partnership.”
The President also expressed gratitude to the countries that had just made significant pledges to the replenishment of Gavi at the Gavi’s High-Level Pledging Summit in Brussels.
He said, he was taking back the slogan, “while others step back, we step up.”
Placing the Gavi replenishment in context, President Mahama said Gavi was seeking to spend $9 billion over the next five years from 2026 to 2030, which was to immunize 500 million children across the world.
Adding that these children’s lives would be safe to grow up, to become the scientists, engineers, nurses, teachers, and doctors of tomorrow.
He said, he did the research, and he realized that one B2 spirit bomber that dropped bombs costs $2.13 billion.
“If you work in math, what Gavi is seeking is the value of four of those B2 bombers. Surely the world can afford the value of four B2 bombers to save 500 million children.” President Mahama said.
“It’s a choice we have to make. It’s a choice we have to make between taking lives and saving lives. And I’m sure that we will save lives instead of taking lives,” he added.
The President again expressed his appreciation on behalf of the children of Ghana to Gavi.
GNA
