NewzSEND Ghana Country Director Harriet Nuamah Agyemang has called on government to establish a dedicated public health emergency fund to enable authorities to respond swiftly to disease outbreaks. She said the absence of such a fund forces health authorities to go through bureaucratic processes to access resources whenever an emergency occurs, delaying critical interventions. We have been calling; SEND Ghana has been calling on government to get its emergency preparedness and response fund, or a public health emergency fund that reduces those bureaucracies, so that when we have an outbreak, we just tap into that fund,” she said on Joy FM’s Top Story.
According to her, SEND Ghana has advocated the establishment of the fund for years, but government is yet to put it in place. “It has been years, and we still do not have that fund established,” she stressed. Ms Nuamah Agyemang said the fund would allow government to quickly mobilise resources and respond appropriately to outbreaks without being slowed down by normal financial procedures.
Her comments come as health authorities manage suspected yellow fever cases across the country. Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh says about 450 suspected cases were recorded between June and September 2026, including 74 in the Upper West Region. Three of the 74 cases have so far been confirmed as yellow fever.
Ms Nuamah Agyemang also urged government to consider strengthening local vaccine manufacturing, particularly amid reported efforts to procure additional vaccine doses and secure isolation spaces. She said the government should assess the progress of Ghana’s vaccine manufacturing initiative and explore partnerships with private manufacturers to improve the country’s capacity to produce vaccines when needed. SEND Ghana Country Director Harriet Nuamah Agyemang has urged government to prioritise local vaccine manufacturing to strengthen Ghana’s preparedness for future disease outbreaks.
She said the country’s reported scramble to procure additional vaccine doses during the current suspected yellow fever situation highlights the need to develop domestic capacity to produce vaccines when emergencies arise. Ms Nuamah Agyemang said Ghana must assess the progress of the vaccine manufacturing initiative and determine what more can be done to build local production capacity. “Vaccine manufacturing has been a topical issue in the past few years, with the previous government even setting up the vaccine institute,” she said on Joy FM’s Top Story.
She urged the media and relevant stakeholders to examine what the institute has achieved so far and the recommendations it has made to government. “Maybe you need to find out what the institute has been doing, what recommendations they’ve given to government, whether we are manufacturing any vaccines soon,” she said. Ms Nuamah Agyemang also called for stronger collaboration between government and private pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure vaccines can be produced or secured quickly when the need arises.
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