President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, delivered a powerful speech at the Gavi Vaccine Alliance conference on Wednesday, June 25, in Brussels, urging world leaders to invest more in global immunization efforts.
Mahama shared a personal story about his younger brother, who was crippled by polio and later died from alcohol poisoning. He used the story to highlight what is at stake when vaccines don’t reach everyone. “So I understand what life-saving vaccines are,” he said.
He also announced that Ghana has achieved 97% immunization coverage, thanks to its partnership with Gavi. However, “it means another 3% is missing”, the President noted, adding that 65,000 children remain unreached, mostly in remote areas, and pledged to find and vaccinate with the support of Gavi.
John Mahama revealed that his administration had uncapped the National Health Insurance Fund, allowing for an extra GHS 3.5 billion allocation. This arrangement will enable Ghana to front-load $20 million this year alone to meet its co-financing obligations with Gavi.
Concluding his address, Mahama compared Gavi’s $9 billion funding goal to the cost of four B-2 bombers recently deployed by the United States in support of Israel’s military action against Iran. “It’s a choice between taking lives and saving lives,” he said, urging donors to prioritize health over warfare.
Some global health experts have noted that while President Mahama may have expressed Ghana’s intention to become a donor nation within the global vaccine community by 2030, the country may not yet be fully prepared to transition away from Gavi’s support. They point to the slow pace of local investment and innovation as key challenges to sustaining vaccine equity without external assistance. Without Gavi’s financial and technical backing, lower-income countries like Ghana would need to fully fund vaccines for diseases such as polio, cervical cancer, malaria, and meningitis, and that would require millions of dollars and expanded infrastructure.
While in Brussels, Mahama held meetings with Gavi Board Chair José Manuel Barroso, EU leaders, and Bill Gates, discussing ways to strengthen vaccine access and health systems across
