Critical childhood vaccines missing from the Ghana’s Extended Program of Immunization (EPI)

The socioeconomic challenges that were predicted by experts as possible consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak in developing countries has now become the reality of Ghana. Months after the pandemic has ended, Ghana is now faced with economic breakdown.

The effect of the economic meltdown is been felt by every government policy. In the past months, parents of children under-five have had to scramble for childhood vaccines which hitherto were simply integrated in the EPI which served as a one stop shop for childhood immunization.

A frustrated parent took to social media to vent his anger after moving from one vaccination centre to the other without luck. A top journalist also took to twitter to express his disappointment as he struggled with other parents to obtain an overdue vaccination for their children.

The continuous shortage of these vaccines has the potential to derail Ghana’s effort of SDG3 which aimed to ‘ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’.

On the 22^nd February, the Paediatric Society of Ghana, in press release called on the Government and other developing partners to speed up any effort to restore the vaccines lest the country faces the ‘risk of reversing gains made over the past 7 years under the SDGs’.

Already, the Northern part of the West African Country, has seen a surge of measles, one of the vaccine preventable childhood diseases resulting in the Health Authorities declaring measles outbreak in the region. Meanwhile, there has been unofficial reports of measle outbreak in the major health facilities in the Country.

The Covid-19 continue to expose the inherent weakness and ill-managed health system policy in the country; it is the hope of health experts that, central government will pick this as lessons learnt the hard way to address the shortfalls in the countries health service.