Ghana government urged to prioritise early release funds for vaccines

Queens in the Volta Region have have askes the Government to ensure early release of funds for the co-payment of vaccines supplied to the country.

They said that was the only way to prevent shortage of vaccines, a situation that put the lives of infants at risk.

Mama Dzitri II of Wli Agorviofe in the Hohoe Municipality said this on behalf of her colleagues at an advocacy workshop on vaccination in Ho.

It was organised by Hope For Future Generations (HFFG).  a non-governmental organisation with focus on health and youth development.

“We, the Queens, are really appealing to the Government that the children are our future leaders so, they should help us so that the preventable diseases can be eradicated,” she said.

She lauded the capacity-building initiative by the HFFG, which equipped them with the requisite resources to champion advocacy on vaccination.

The Executive Director of HFFG, Mrs Cecilia Senoo, said the initiative was to prepare the Queens to become ambassadors to amplify the need for the Government to timely meet its co-financing of the purchase of vaccines.

She said the engagement was under a four-year project dubbed: “Financing Immunization Advocacy Response (FAIR) Project”, which would support the beneficiaries to undertake projects aimed at removing societal myths on vaccination, as well as increasing vaccine coverage in their jurisdictions.

She entreated stakeholders to focus on creating awareness on the introduction of malaria vaccine and other new vaccines to enable the Ghana Health Service to achieve the desired coverage.

Mrs. Senoo lamented the unavailability of vaccines for cervical cancer and implored the Government to “facilitate the provision of the HPV vaccines to protect young females”.

Source: GNA