The historic groundbreaking follows the signing of a € 5 million-investment grant agreement between the European Investment Bank (EIB) and DEK Vaccines Ltd. to kick-off Ghana’s private sector local vaccine manufacturing initiative and to ensure vaccine equity and access. This is on top of € 2.7 million from the EU in support of the Ghana Food and Drugs Authority in 2022 to help strengthen its capacities in vaccine regulation.

The EU Ambassador said, “I am proud that the EU is today fulfilling its promise to be a key supporter of vaccine manufacturing in Ghana to manufacture 600 million doses of various vaccines a year, including vaccines for Malaria, HPV, Pneumonia, Rotavirus and Cholera.”

Ambassador Razaaly added that as a contribution to Global Gateway, Team Europe in Ghana is approaching local manufacturing of vaccines holistically with strategic interventions to support the implementation of Ghana’s vaccine manufacturing roadmap in various areas including building human resources, strengthening research and development for vaccine production as well as building bilateral and multilateral partnerships for vaccine production.

President Akufo-Addo said, “The state-of-art facility will make Ghana realise its dream of becoming self-sufficient in the production of vaccines and this is a fulfilment of Government ambition at the height of the COVID pandemic to see to the manufacture of vaccines locally”

For his part, the Managing Director of DEK Vaccines Ltd.,  Dr Kofi Nsiah-Poku said “this ground-breaking is a much-awaited event for the largest single manufacturing factory of vaccines in Africa that will impact lives positively; we are committed to complete the project by the end of 2024 to ensure the production of first commercial vaccine by 2025”