Wa, May 04, GNA – The supply of an ultra-cold chain equipment to the Upper West Region is a major boost for her fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as the region now has the facility to store especially the Pfizer vaccine for the ongoing vaccination exercise.
Madam Rashida Mahama, Upper West Regional Cold Chain Manager, who stated this, said the arrival of the ultra-cold chain equipment had also ensured that the region had enough capacity to store a lot more COVID-19 vaccines.
She stated this whilst interacting with officials from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), who visited the Regional Cold Room in Wa to ascertain impact of health-related projects undertaken by UNICEF with funding from the Government of Japan.
In March this year, UNICEF with support from the Government of Japan, supplied an ultra-cold chain equipment to the Upper West Regional Cold Room to help store Pfizer vaccines being supplied to the region for the COVID-19 mass vaccination exercise.
Prior to this, the Upper West Regional Cold Room had three vaccine fridges, but they could not produce the minus 80 degrees Celsius temperature required for storage of the Pfizer vaccines.
Madam Mahama said, “Before it came, the space was not enough to store more vaccines. So, its arrival has given us more space to store more vaccines. We have more space to even store other vaccines.”
She said, “when the Pfizer vaccines come, that is where we store them before distributing to district health directorates to also distribute to the hospitals and health centres to vaccinate the members of the public.”
“So, the benefit is that when we are doing distribution, we cannot just put them in normal vaccine fridges. We put them in the ultra-cold chain because it is Pfizer vaccine, and it needs very low temperature. So, we allocate for the districts and put them there.”
She expressed gratitude to the donors for the support, saying, “It is really helping because if it had not been given us, we would not have gotten the space for some of our vaccines.”
UNICEF has been working with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) over the last three to four years to strengthen the cold chain capacity across the country, and following a nationwide assessment in 2018/2019, and with support from GAVI, UNICEF procured over 2,300 pieces of vaccine fridges, which have been installed all over the country.
Dr Mrunal Shetye, Chief, Health and Nutrition, UNICEF Ghana said, “In view of this, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit us, we were, from the cold chain perspective, in a slightly better space than we would have been earlier.”
He said, “Following the rapid influx of vaccines, we had vaccines, which now required special requirements, storage conditions of minus 80 degrees and such equipment was not available in the country.”
“What UNICEF along with the GHS and the Ministry of Health did was to develop a plan on what cold chain should look like and as part of the plan, the government procured cold chain equipment and UNICEF supported in procuring 36 pieces of ultra-cold chain equipment. The support for this was provided by the Government of Japan,” he added.
“Now, in each region, we have at least one piece of ultra-cold chain equipment, which can store the very heat sensitive Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. As we progress, we are now on the phase of expanding the existing capacity. So, one of the places that is going to receive extra cold chain capacity is the Upper West Regional Cold Room.”
Dr Shetye announced that UNICEF and partners were in the process of bringing in over 21 pieces of walking cold rooms and walking freezers, which would be installed at the national and regional levels to augment the capacity of the country to store vaccines by multiple times.
He expressed impressions after touring the Cold Room in Wa and said “What amazes me is the resilience of the health system. The health workers are able to stand up, take charge and deliver well. That is very admirable. There are no questions about why not. It is always about we can.”
He added that, “Everything is well organised. It is so functional. They know exactly the number of equipment that needs to be working. There is no wastage. It just speaks of efficiency in management. I think that is fantastic as far as the teams that are managing this equipment are concerned.”
GNA