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Ghana has been selected for a pilot roll out of the new RTS,S recombinant protein-based malaria vaccine in 3 out of 10 regions in the country.

The nationwide scale up of this new vaccine is likely to place a huge strain on the health system. National institutions that would be at the forefront of the potential scale up need to be better equipped to identify and address implementation bottlenecks. SAVING Consortium (Sustainable Access and Delivery of New Vaccines in Ghana), led by the University of Health and Allied Sciences, has thus developed a proposal to build capacity of multiple stakeholders (Ghana Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Ministry of Health (MoH)) to identify and address implementation challenges for the efficient and effective delivery and uptake of new medical interventions.

The work of the SAVING Consortium builds on the framework of the Access and Delivery Partnership value chain, which stresses the importance of an efficient regulatory control system, an enabling policy and regulatory environment, a robust health technology assessment system, an efficient procurement and supply chain management, quality implementation and delivery research, and responsive pharmaco-vigilance system as key cornerstones for effective delivery of any new medical intervention.

The Consortium will use Implementation Research (IR) as the guiding principle for its work and would build technical and IR capacity in partner institutions to facilitate the delivery and uptake of new medical interventions in Ghana. Specifically, the proposed interventions would aim at identifying and addressing technical capacity gaps of national institutions, building institutional and individual capacity implementation research, and enhancing capacities to utilise evidence-based decision-making for effective delivery of new health technologies. To achieve these objectives, the consortium would collect data to understand inherent gaps, conduct at least two implementation research studies to learn lessons from the deployment of a mobile application and a patient information system.

Data generated from these interventions will be used to inform the policy revision process at the National level and contribute to knowledge exchange through South-South and North-South partnership. Furthermore, lessons learnt and evidence gleaned from the project would contribute to the development of a health system that is well equipped, fit for purpose and ready to support the delivery of the new malaria vaccine and other new health technologies.