FACTS SHEETS ON IMMUNIZATION FINANCING IN GHANA
Submitted to the
AFRICAN POPULATION AND HEALTH RESEARCH CENTER
APRIL, 2020
Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health
Box AC 42, Arts Center, Accra
Email: healthcoalition2000@yahoo.co.uk
Tel: +233541180325/+233508385212
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FACTS SHEETS ON IMMUNIZATION FINANCING IN GHANA
Key facts
Overview
Immunization coverage in Ghana
Pent 3 is used as proxy for national immunization coverage in Ghana. Over the years, immunization coverage have been high mostly above 90% except in 2015 where coverage went below the 90%.
98
coverage% 88
99
97
93
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Year
coverage
This notwithstanding, immunization coverage is not equally distributed across the country. Many hard to districts, communities and urbans areas are under performing. Thus, the recommended 80% and above coverage for every district is not achieved. Ghana health service report indicates that about 31% of districts could not achieve the 80% coverage for Penta 31.
The EPI in its comprehensive multi-year plan for immunization – 2015 – 2019, targeted achieving 95% vaccination coverage in all antigens was not achieved. This was however not realized due to the non–implementation of recommendation on dedicated government of Ghana funding for immunization2
Immunization financing in Ghana
The Government of Ghana (GoG) is expected to increase its co-financing share for vaccines to 100% by 2027. Ghana share of vaccines financing increased from 11% in 2012 to 36% in 2016. At a point where government of Ghana share of vaccines financing was expected to increase steadily to full financing, the percentage of government of Ghana share of vaccines financing decreased from 36% in 2016 to 29% in 2017 and further to 19% in 20183
Vaccine financing in Ghana
100 | ||||||||
90 | ||||||||
80 | ||||||||
70 | ||||||||
percent | 60 | |||||||
40 | ||||||||
50 | ||||||||
30 | ||||||||
20 | ||||||||
10 | ||||||||
0 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |
% of vaccines financed by GoG | 11 | 15 | 12 | 28 | 36 | 29 | 19 | |
% of vaccines financed by | 89 | 85 | 88 | 72 | 64 | 71 | 81 | |
Gavi/donors | ||||||||
Figure 2: Vaccine financing in Ghana
Source: Gavi transition dashboard, access 26/04/2020
Key challenges
The biggest challenge has been that Planning and Budgeting for Gavi co-financing commitments and other parts of the immunization program, particularly the cold chain, have been inadequate. This is because the responsibility for financing the country’s immunization program has not been made explicit and communicated to all stakeholders, particularly health providers and the population
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Call to action